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Jon Stewart made his reputation as a smart political comedian and commentator on Comedy Centrals The Daily Show on TV, before quitting in 2015 to develop movie projects, of which the first was his excellent Rosewater. But this heartsinkingly is the follow-up. Its a flaccid, toothless, supercilious political non-satire for liberals too fastidious to take sides or take action. The film perches on a fence of wry disdain and makes droll gestures of disapproval at the wasteful big-money awfulness of everyones political campaign. And its leading to a big tortuous plot twist which frankly isnt convincing, despite the talking-head expert interviewee who is wheeled on over the closing credits to assure us that it is. What were left with is a bland cop-out, which incidentally wont worry anyone yearning for Donald Trumps second term.

Steve Carell finds some of his dullest form playing Gary Zimmer, a Washington DC political strategist for the Democratic party, desperately searching for the next big thing after the debacle of 2016. (Stewart may have been inspired by Stanley Tuccis media-manipulator in the small-town political satire Swing Vote.) To Zimmers astonished delight, one of his minions finds a viral YouTube video of a retired Marine Corps veteran called Colonel Jack Hastings, played by Chris Cooper, giving a passionate speech about caring community values at a town-hall meeting somewhere in Wisconsin, where folks have been financially stricken by the recent army-base closure. The holy grail: a tough guy whos also a progressive.

Cunning Zimmer duly shows up in hicksville (wrinkling his nose at all the niceness thereabouts) to persuade the grumpily authentic Hastings to run as a Dem for mayor and maybe something more if it all works out. Soon the top brass in Washington are excited; the cash rolls in for his campaign and the Republicans get fired up too bringing in their ice-queen spin-doctor Faith Brewster, played by Rose Byrne, who seems to have some history and toxic sexual chemistry with Zimmer.

There are, arguably, one or two reasonable touches, such as the observation about punctuation on billboard ads, inspired by the notorious Jeb! campaign for the hapless Jeb Bush. But really, any single TV episode of Veep or Parks and Recreation has far more wit, fun and political zap than this great big laugh-free feast of self-congratulatory dullness. Zimmer himself never has any funny lines and the rules about making the leading man relatable and making the Democratic guy basically nice mean that he is never allowed to have any of that Satanic political glamour of pure wickedness that might have made his character interesting. The movie never permits itself the forbidden fossil-fuel of cynicism that might have given it some movement.

The talents of Topher Grace and Natasha Lyonne are thrown away in the tiny roles of pollsters and online number-crunchers that Zimmer has brought in. It could be that much of their characters were lost in the edit, but certainly the film is not especially interested in the hot-button issues of Facebook and data-harvesting. The eerie absence of race as an issue in the film is also naive.

The story runs on predictable lines, with the underdog Hastings making exciting gains on the Republican incumbent; then his momentum stalls and theres a dilemma how nasty are his team prepared to be to clinch their win? And theres that very exasperating ending, to which I can only say that in the real world, Zimmer, having raised serious amounts of cash from hedge-funders and the like, would take a pretty close interest in the bottom line.

The real finale, however, comes in the typography: the word RESIST is eye-catchingly picked out in the middle of the title, in fine Michael-Moore-lite style. Resist? Really? How? The movie has signed off with a pert little flourish to the effect that the whole system is broken, so maybe we should wish a plague on both their houses or neither. Either way, the supposed satirical attitude of Irresistible cant conceal the fact that its contrived, unfunny and redundant.

Released on 26 June on digital formats.

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Irresistible review Jon Stewarts political non-satire for liberals is as dull as it gets - The Guardian