User reviews

Okay, I am very aware that this movie is pretty awful. And funny enough, I don't care for Katie Holmes or Marc Blucas. But I can't help but watch this when I'm alone and no one else knows. Michael Keaton is good as always. And even though the whole storyline is completely ridiculous, there are some very sweet moments. The biggest problem with this movie is simply the very weak script. However, the good news is that regardless of the script and some of the actors, it can't help but have some guilty charms. I don't think I would recommend this to anyone who doesn't have genuine guilty pleasures. Real ones. Like that George Lazenby is their favorite Bond. But it's a cute movie that I think younger tweens might enjoy.

Samantha Mackenzie (Katie Holmes), the daughter of President Mackenzie (Michael Keaton) and his wife Melanie (Margaret Collin), decides to go to college in California during his tough campaign for reelection. She requests a reduced secret service protection trying to act normal with her new mates, including her roommate Mia Thompson (Amerie), and she falls in love for James Lansome (Marc Blucas). When her security is threatened, she discloses the real identity of James and decides to return home to support her family in the election process.

In spite of having a good cast with great performances, "First Daughter" has a very silly and shallow screenplay that does not help the actors and the actresses. The story aims to expose the "tough life" of a young woman because she is the daughter of the president of the USA, but actually shows a futile, spoiled and overprotected teenager with a weak personality having a luxurious and banal lifestyle. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Filha do Presidente" ("The Daughter of the President")

Despite it being an interesting concept, it was quite poorly executed. While the plot twist did make it more interesting, little care was given to the 'solution' of the issue in the film,making the conclusions that the characters come to seem abrupt and out of place. Furthermore, I simply could not see any chemistry between the couple at all, making it hard to root for them.

First Daughter says it all.... This movie was fun and light-hearted, but by no means was it a collector's item. Katie Holmes does not always succeed in looking 18 (more like 25) but she convinces the audience that she is at least well-meaning. Michael Keaton returns to the big screen- the daddy-daughter chemistry is endearing, if not nearly convincing. The plot line was neither original nor engaging to any real degree, but Katie does an OK job of keeping interest. The love interest is charming and the scenes are moderately appealing. If you have no real expectations you'll most likely get a kick out of the movie, just don't expect too much. If you saw Mandy Moore's version of this movie you'll be pleasantly surprised to find it not so far-fetched, but it is no more original than round number one of the "first daughter" goes. If you're up for any chick- flick available, do it. If you're skeptical and short on cash... stay home.

Samantha Mackenzie (Katie Holmes) has always been a sweet proper girl and the only daughter of the President (Michael Keaton). She is going off to college and the strict Secret Service protection doesn't always fit. She falls for student James Lansome (Marc Blucas). However the president is in his re-election campaign and James isn't who she thinks he is.

It's always odd to note that this was directed by Forest Whitaker, but he seems to like these light rom-coms. And this is the lightest of rom-com especially in the first half. Katie Holmes is playing a stiff character and isn't allowing the comedy to come through. The movie does improve slightly with the twist for about 15 minutes, but then it falls apart with a flat unimpressive ending.

Katie Holmes plays the president's daughter who decides to go to a normal college to have a normal college experience.

There she has to contend with room mates, drink, overly tight security, her father's presidential campaign and, of course, a boy.

As you probably expect this is wholesome light weight fodder with not too many shocks.

What is unusual is the amount of love and professionalism put into this.

Despite its rather whimsical premise the story is very lean and structured - performances are good and production is solid.

Nobody working on this expected it to win any Oscars but it is nice to see people put the effort in.

The result is a charming, fun Sunday afternoon movie that is much better than a lot of the other grandiose movies surrounding it on Netflix.

I thought this movie will be some rich brat spoiling their life but this movie is so much more than that.

Basically, this movie is about a girl Samantha she is a girl of the president. All she wants is to live a life like regular people she wants her life to be simple but with privilege we need to sacrifice something. She went a college but her father send a tight security as he is helpless he also gets many death threats about her daughter. People are giving her all attention because she is a daughter of precedent not because of who she is. Nobody wanna know, what she wants her whole future is picked by people with all the expectations. She doesn't even have friends. In college she met her roommate Mia she is cool. She treats her like a normal person. And there she met a handsome boy James they become friends quickly. He treats her like a normal person. He talks to her for her, not because he wanted he took her to the normal place. He doesn't judge her. But life can be that simple right? So she found out something that's the story.

I love the concept of the story like you have everything you want but not what you need. You are lonely but need to pretend like you are happy. Putting happy face all the time is hard, I loved this film not relatable but I enjoyed it.

I just registered with IMDb for the exclusive purpose of telling everyone within shouting distance that is one of the absolute worst movies I have ever seen. I had to do this in order to validate the two hours of my life that I just wasted on this tripe. The script was beyond awful, and it was incredibly slow. Please, for the love of God, do not waste your time on this movie. I cannot even conceive of a movie more predictable, more cliché, more utterly forced. I can imagine Michael Keaton seeing the final cut of this film for the first time and retching, wondering what the hell happened to his career. This film was clearly targeted to under 13 girls, and I suspect that they could not even stomach the astoundingly slow pace of the film.

The plot itself - about the First daughter who went to College in Carlifornia, far away from the White House, in order to be normal and meet friends may be cliché. Yet the movie on the whole can still hand out nice surprises every now and then. Katie Holmes has a unique face and looks intelligent enough to want to be independent as well as not to disappoint the First family. More importantly, Marc Blucas (her love interest) is not like the stereotyped Prince Charming for a teenager. At least he also looks sophisticated and mature and gives a strong case why the first daughter would fall for him. The two make an attractive couple and are on the same wavelength when they share the views on science etc.

The twist in the movie, at least I didn't see it coming, is good. Considering how many such plots have appeared on screen, I must say this one at least is not as predictable and does give me some credibility as a story about real people. The President and First Lady are not given a significant part here. The young couple already is a good reason to watch the movie. The love songs that accompanied the ball room dances are pleasant and well-chosen. If "monster-in-law" is rated 5 out of 10 here (last time I check), then "the First Daughter" deserves at least a 6.5 or 7, for its creativity and credible performance by the leading couple.

I also hope that Marc Blucas has great roles in future movies for his refreshing looks and performance.

We watched the DVD for the first time over the weekend and since then it has been replayed numerous times. Yes, there are parts that are fluffy and not very deep but sometimes we need clean lighthearted fun movies to entertain not educate, make us think or try to shield our children or grandchildren from language, obscenity etc.

I think there was a lot of subtlety in the movie that some may have missed, the callbacks and transitions were interesting. Yeah there were some parts where I wondered what message the Director was trying to get across because the scene seemed a little out of order or at times unnecessary. I agree with others that there were opportunities to develop characters that were not taken up. I hope there is a sequel - there are so many issues that could be explored in a relationship between an Agent and the First Daughter - and last but not least Marc Blucas seems to be under rated as an actor - and he is very easy on the eyes.

Katie Holmes is the president's daughter, but she wants to go to college like a normal kid.

We've seen this before, the cindarella story has played out so many times in Western cinema its physically sickening. We've seen this EXACT story recently, too, in The Prince and I, where it was a European royal who wanted to go to American college and be young.

Absolute cornball tripe with cliché dialogue and contrived situations. Squirm-inducing.

Forest Whitaker clearly learned nothing from being in the classic movie Good Morning Viewtnam.

The best parts of this movie - in my estimation is watching Katie Holmes run around with that tiny blue bikini on, and do the table dance with the blonde wig on. Other than that - it could have been much better. I thought the combo of Michael Keaton and Katie would have made this movie much improved over Chasing Liberty (I also thought that movie was mediocre at best). But in the end, this movie was just okay. The ending was very disappointing also. There was no resolution except that she's got her whole life in front of her. I still consider Wonder Boys and Pieces of April as Katie's best work. I hope she's got something really redeeming up next. I'd hate for her to fall under the Ben Affleck curse (good looking, made some good movies, but then started making tons of terrible ones). We can only hope.

I went to the movie house expecting to see another movie, but I was a day early, so went to see this one. Boring. The whole relationship with the room mate didn't work for me. The room mate role didn't work. Even the whole college scene was not realistic. The college class with the deep remark from Samantha didn't work. The trombone playing could have been the room mate was way overdone. The dance scenes were boring. The general topic is interesting, how someone like a Chelsea Clinton might yearn to have the life of a nobody, but this movie doesn't really explore it with anything but a superficial view. The chocolate cake snack is too big. The relationship with Dad is too superficial. The little guy working for the president was an annoying stereotype. The escape to the White House that Samantha planned was silly.

Entertaining and delightful. A nice movie to watch. Cast is suited for their respective roles, but Katie Holmes is well suited for the role oozing elegance and grace at times in the various functions she attends as the president's daughter. As said before a nice, entertaining and relaxing movie for all. Worth the watch.

Samantha "Sam" Mackenzie (Katie Holmes) is the First Daughter of President John Mackenzie (Michael Keaton) who prepares to leave home for college while still dealing with the presence of Secret Service in her life during an election year. As Sam struggles to adapt to college life and escape the limelight, she falls for her RA James (Marc Blucas) as events soon align that Sam must overcome.

First Daughter is a 2004 romantic dramedy and one of two First Daughter related projects released that year alongside Chasing Liberty. Despite beginning development prior to Chasing Liberty, First Daughter was released several months after Chasing Liberty. Directed by Forest Whitaker who'd previously directed the successful (if not critically well-regarded) Waiting to Exhale and Hope Floats, the film was negatively received by critics who called it inferior to the middlingly reviewed Chasing Liberty and also proved to be a box office bomb earning $10 million against a $30 million budget. While Chasing Liberty was just undemanding date night fodder that owed more than a few debts to Roman Holiday, First Daughter is chemistry free as a romance, laugh free as a comedy, and dramatically inert.

From the opening intro where narration provided by Forest Whitaker sets the story up as though it's a fairy tale, the film fails at establishing a consistent tone for itself and creates already shaky foundations for itself. I don't think Katie Holmes is necessarily to blame for this material as she's only working with what's been given, but in comparison to Chasing Liberty's handling of the First Daughter subject, Holmes feels like she's struggling with understanding a character who simultaneously exists in a world of Fairy Tale fantasy and real world unwanted tabloid and media attention creating a "no-man's land" of a character that doesn't fully satisfy either side of that equation. Marc Blucas is just an absolute blank as a leading man and there's so little chemistry between him and Holmes that the first kiss is shot from the back of Blucas' head as an indicator that even Whitaker knows there's no chemistry. But I think the biggest issues aside from its floundering comedy and lack of chemistry comes from a reveal halfway through the film that makes Michael Keaton and Margaret Colin's President and First Lady MacKenzie absolutely irredeemable as characters in a way the movie doesn't seem to understand. The reveal is very similar to the setup in Chasing Liberty (except played for drama) and while I had my problems with the execution at least the film acknowledged both in character and delivery that what was done was not a good thing. In First Daughter's case it bends backwards over itself to try and justify President MacKenzie's actions and he and the First Lady only do further actions involving their campaign that only further make them irredeemable.

I did not like First Daughter at all. While the cast are clearly trying to do what they can, there's no saving this movie. As a romance there's a lack of chemistry and passion, as a comedy the humor is very hackneyed, and as a drama it alters between being inert or in some cases unintentionally petty or malicious.

1. 'First Daughter'-could the title be any more unoriginal? A bad title will probably mean they have an uncreative storyline seeing as the title totally lacks creativity. Also, there is probably several other movies (definitely one, because i saw it) with the title 'First Daughter'. At least 'Chasing Liberty' took brain cells to put together.

2. The storyline (like i predicted) is very uncreative. It's boring. There's not twist. There's no excitement. There is one twist, if you can even call it that, but you can totally see it coming. The situations Holmes gets into are very ordinary. Yes, i know there has to be some degree of relating with the viewer but do we really watch a movie to see boring, ordinary, every day things? 3. As far as i'm aware, 'Chasing Liberty' was made before 'First Daughter', therefore the creators of 'First Daughter' are total copy cats. It's basically the same storyline except one is based in Europe and the other isn't. Even after stealing the storyline, they still couldn't do a good job at the movie. Forest Whitaker (the director) needs to be shot as punishment.

4. Bad title, bad storyline... it can be saved sometimes by the actors performance. In this case Katie Holmes was the leading lady. However, she didn't save it. She crucified it. Bad acting is very annoying to watch. True, she didn't have much to work off-the character had no debt. But she should have created some. And she didn't. She had no emotion whatsoever. I even began to feel sorry for her because she totally embarrassed herself.

5. I'm not much for PDA but in movies it's different. You expect a kiss. Even if it's acting, you expect it to look real. Katie Holmes acting skills didn't improve even when she didn't have to speak. Marc Blucas was no better. They lacked chemistry. You may even think they despised each other they seemed so not into the kiss.

6. Despite what you all think, i DO have a sense of humour. I don't think the write of this did, though. Several times there was some very unfunny jokes. Mostly overrated or too far fetched that no one would say them. Possibly they picked up on this because any humour fizzled out halfway through the movie.

7. You know when they say 'never judge a book by it's cover'? Yeah, i don't follow that. I pull a DVD off the shelf. If i don't recognize the name, i go by the cover. Granted, that wasn't the case when i bought 'First Daughter' (it was half price) While i'm talking about the cover, i might as well say it's very boring-possibly to tie in with the rest of the movie? It is also very misleading. The image (in case you haven't seen it) is of Holmes in a fancy dress and then in jeans, to show her 'transition'. First off, her dress sense didn't change at all. She wore basically the same clothes at college as she did in the White House, except a Redmond sweater here and there. Secondly, she never once wore jeans. How is that possible?!

8. The ending sucks. The ending is almost as important as the title, if not. A good ending can do wonders for a movie. I don't think the Whitaker understands that, though. And if he does, he doesn't practice it much. It ends sort of like it begins. Sometimes it works. More often it doesn't. In this case, it doesn't. The one thing it does have going is that it isn't cliché. Well, not as cliché as it could have been if it ended with a kiss. However, the ending does leave opening for a sequel. One can only pray that Whitaker and his team don't ignore the reviews.

I don't understand the five star review on this one. It was a good clean-family-fun movie. I think the cast did what they were hired to do, to keep us entertained. And the end was done SO beautifully, the dancing, the music, even the romantic part.

Don't get me wrong, it is an OK movie. Not the best but not the worst either... But is it me or is this movie practically the same as *Chasing Liberty* starring Mandy Moore???? It is basically the same plot - daughter of the president of the united states leaves home seeking for some freedom, falls in love with an undercover secret agent and gets her heart broken - They actually both came out around the same time so it's hard to say if one copies the other or what happened here. But they are definitely oddly similar... Both movies are OK, acting is OK too by both Katie Holmes and Mandy Moore. The ending kind of disappointed me in both though. I am not going to spoil it but it did. I liked the ending of First Dauther a little bit better i guess but overall they were just practically the same movie...

There is not much positive to say about this movie. I could have forgiven wrapping the movie in corny narration and the dialog being awful in 90% of the scenes, if I could just be made to care for these characters. But there is just nothing there - all we know about Samantha Mackenzie is that she is the presidents daughter. The same goes for all the other characters in the movie - stereotypical, one-dimensional and absolutely nothing personal is ever told about any of them.

The story is also severely lacking and you are constantly wondering why this or that scene was even in the movie. The only thing that sort of works are the scenes with Michael Keaton (the president) and Katie Holmes (presidents daughter) and had they built the movie around their relationship - maybe this could have worked out to be a compelling movie. Unfortunately its not, in fact it is hard to see any overall vision of what this movie is about.

This isn't the first time the story of the princess wanting to be just like everyone else is being told and given that fact I think this is a movie the world could go on without.