1999, 1 hr 40 min., Rated PG-13 for sex-related humor, drug content and language. Dir: Andrew Fleming. Cast: Kirsten Dunst (Betsy), Michelle Williams (Arlene), Dan Hedaya (Pres. Richard Nixon), Will Ferrell (Bob Woodward), Bruce McCulloch (Carl Bernstein), Dave Foley (Bob Haldeman), Jim Breuer (John Dean), Ana Gasteyer (Rose Mary Woods), Teri Gar (Arlene's mom), Harry Shearer (G. Gordon Liddy), Saul Rubinek (Henry Kissinger), Devon Gummersall (Larry).

Just buying a ticket to see Dick is embarrassing enough, but it was worse when I found this movie to be generally unfunny and disappointing. It was more amusing trying to buy the ticket from the old woman in the booth: "I want to see Dick, please."

I was sort-of looking forward to Dick, being a history and political buff. What I was treated to, instead, was some amusing minor characters overshadowed by the main ones who spent most of their time squealing or using some sort of coded 15-year-old Valley girl "Teen Beat" language that tries in some points to be like Forrest Gump, but without the clever writing, likeable star, humor and solid effects.

I'm sorry, but if I want to see girls full of bumbling stupidity I'll watch MTV when the Backstreet Boys appear. Dunst even admits: "We are stupid." As Bob Haldeman (Foley) says pointedly: "I've seen yams with more going on than those two." In fact, I believe they were a little too silly even for 15 year-olds. Of course, depending on how old the three giggling girls were behind me in the theater, I may change my mind.

I know that some will accuse me of not liking Dick because I'm a Republican. Wrong. I wasn't born until after Nixon's resignation so I don't have first-hand knowledge from watching any of the events, I only know what I read in books and saw in documentaries on TV. So I classify the Nixon administration as non-party-affiliated for their evils, and not as being something I'd defend. They should be attacked by equal-opportunity slander on both sides of the political spectrum.

That said, I laughed a few times at the way Watergate unfolded according to Dick, and some of the other political dealings such as with Vietnam. I found it very funny as Nixon's aides keep saying that the war is former president Lyndon Johnson's fault and they are only playing the hand they were dealt. But the filmmakers even beat the anti-war bits to death, as with all the instances where either Betsy or Arlene yells how they love or hate Dick in a crowded place.

PLOT: Dunst and Williams play Betsy and Arlene, two naive 15 year olds who read Teen Beat and make prank phone calls like all good teens. But everything changes when they come across the Watergate break-in and inadvertantly change history, from saving the peace accords with the Soviet Union to becoming Deep Throat and thus bringing down a President. In the meantime we learn why the 18 1/2 minutes were erased on Nixon's tapes.

Will Ferrell and Bruce McCulloch playing those "radical muckraking bastards," Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, also gave me reason to smile, if for a few minutes. Here the journalists are not portrayed as noble in the profession, very anti-All the President's Men. Instead they are bickering, backstabbing and selfish. I'm not sure if there was supposed to be some sort of hidden gay lover intention, and I don't want to know.

Even with the great supporting characters, they cannot overcome the problems I have with Dunst and Williams. They were not funny. When I think they were trying to be serious it came across as severly fake, and when they were angry all I heard was loud high-pitched babble that might as well have been Swahili.

If you don't know the intracacies of the Watergate scandal, then you must stay away from this movie because it will be miles over your head. But, like me, even if you do know the backstory you may not like this bumbling picture.