Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8932 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-12-27
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English, Portuguese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 106 minutes

Synopsis
Pop songstress Mandy Moore (A WALK TO REMEMBER) makes another big-screen splash with CHASING LIBERTY, a charming romantic comedy. Moore is Anna Foster (aka Liberty), daughter of the President of the United States, James Foster (Mark Harmon). Fed up with the overprotective secret service men that follow her around every second, Anna finally decides to cut loose. While on vacation in Europe she goes to a live performance of the hip-hop band The Roots and then escapes on a motorcycle with a cute photographer, Ben Calder (Matthew Goode). But what she doesn't realize is that Ben is actually a secret service agent himself who is under strict orders to act like a regular guy in order to provide the illusion that Anna is on her own for the first time in her life. As the pair journeys from Prague to Venice to the Love Parade festival in Berlin, Anna finds herself falling in love with Ben. At the same time, the agents on her trail (Jeremy Piven and Annabella Sciorra) find the same thing happening to them. Though the well-intentioned Ben does his best to keep Anna at a polite distance without crossing any romantic lines, it eventually becomes clear that he too is falling for her, complicating the situation. With CHASING LIBERTY, Moore once again proves her undeniably charismatic screen presence.

Customer Reviews

Harmless and fun though unoriginal
Mandy Moore goes through the chick flick motions again, as "cute girl with romance problems". On this occasion, her obstacle to romance is the fact she is the President's daughter (Liberty being her Secret Service codename). So, at 18, on a trip to Europe, she escapes the secret service army protecting her, in order to experience real freedom. On the way, she enlists the help of a young English man Ben Calder, played by Mathew Goode. Her father secretly allows it, having decided that she needs to experience `controlled freedom', to get it out of her system. The safety net is that Ben Calder is actually a secret service agent the President has sworn to protect her, and never to reveal his identity.
It's formulaic and undemanding - but in fact hits all the right notes to achieve success in its given genre. Mandy Moore is cute, although she comes across more as spoilt kid than object of sympathy. Mathew Goode plays the role with manner, accent and appeal all directly descended from the Hugh Grant school of acting. Parallel to the main plot, is the more unlikely, but rather funny and more enjoyable building of romance between the two agents who are chasing Liberty across Europe, played by the always worth watching Jeremy Piven, and Annabella Sciorra.
The locations in Prague, Berlin, and especially Venice, make for some visual eye candy helping to maintain some interest for the non teenagers in the crowd.
Guys will no doubt find this schmaltzy, but if you have to watch a chick flick, then this one is better than many out there.

Not amazing, but enjoyable and worthwhile.
A scenario that has been done before ('My Date With the President's Daughter', 'First Daughter'), irritating spoilt brat Anna (played by Mandy Moore) tries to escape her controlling parents. as she flees across Europe, what she doesn't know is that she has been set up. Good-looking, intelligent charmer Ben (Matthew Goode) is an agent hired by her parents.

You may, like me, find Moore's character to be less sweet and naive and more demanding and stupid. However, despite the cliches and inaccurate stereotypes (the President amusingly claims he has to convince Europe to increase aid to poorer nations, for example), the film is pleasantly watchable.

The scenery is interesting to watch, the minor characters can be comical, but in my opinion what saves this film is the performance of Matthew Goode. He plays smooth, sophisticated Ben in a way that will attract many romantics to this film!

If you enjoyed the film, the extra features are paritcularly good, including a commentary by Moore and Goode on the film.

a joy to watch
A romantic comedy with plenty of both and a familiar topic: the President's daughter of America. Having been cooped up in the White House for too long and followed around incessantly by bodyguards, Anna yearns for the notorious American dream more than anyone else, and that's freedom. The liberty to go someplace without being recognised and asked for autographs and the liberty to have a first date which isn't ruined by bodyguards pouncing on your date's friend because he dared to reach into his pocket. Protesting to her father has come to no avail, thus she takes matters into her own hands and runs off during a presidential visit to Prague. With a new-found travelling companion, who is of course a dashing young fellow, Anna ventures from Prague to Venice to Berlin, with bodyguards hopelessly trying to keep up. The chase is on, but who will get caught unawares? An amiable, feel-good movie that is good for what it is, but has little scope for much else.