That ads for Silver City make it perfectly clear that this is a film with a message, and that it's message is of prime importance right now. Like Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Corporation and The Manchurian Candidate, this is a film whose makers -- in this case, longtime auteur John Sayles -- are doing all they can to, if not sway opinions, at least make voters think long and hard about their ballot. Would these films have been given the same attention last year, or next year? The Manchurian Candidate would because it's a big budget thriller, and the documentaries would certainly have found their audiences, however substantially smaller they might have been. And Sayles would probably have made this film, although it might have taken a slightly different form.

There are two stylistic elements that make up Silver City: hard-as-nails satire, and mystery. I'm curious as to which came first when Sayles was writing the script, because they're not completely concurrent. It's as if Sayles had a story he was working on, and then realized that it might be a good vehicle for expressing his political concerns in the election year, and thus expanded certain ideas, added a scene or two.

Those scenes would be the ones involving Dickie Pilager, whose name itself is clearly in the realm of broad satire. Played by the invaluable Chris Cooper, he's a dimwit, a redneck and a gubernatorial candidate in the beautiful state of Colorado. He comes from a long line of wealthy Republicans, and he's joined at the hip to a massive global conglomerate called Benteen. Well, joined at more than the hip. "I'm a small government man," he tells . "I know," responds Wes Benteen (Kris Kristoffersen), the head of the company. "That's why we picked you."

There's not a hint of subtlety in Sayles approach to the Pilager campaign; he's an allegory for Bush and his entire administration. It's a pretty astute reflection; I also found it hilarious, but Bush supporters sure won't share that sentiment. Nor will they appreciate the even less-veiled jabs at their beloved leader; since the film takes place in 2003, Sayles is able to frame his shots just so, to include the posters of Dubya with devil horns that just so happen to be in the background. Or consider my favorite line in the film: "One president gets caught getting a blowjob in the oval office and another steals the election; Americans have lost their ability to be scandalized."

The Pilager campaign, however, is a very small part of the film. Early on, while filming a pro-environment television ad, Dickie's fishook snares a dead body floating in a lake. The corpse is a Juan Doe, an anonymous Mexican, likely an illegal immigrant. The campaign handlers assign the task of identifying the body to a private eye named Danny O'Brien (Danny Houston), and at that point the satire begins to disappear and the mystery takes over. The film does remain highly political; it's just not so consistently biting. Danny uncovers a web of unpleasantries that all lead back to the Benteen Coorporation -- and thus, to the future governor of the state. Sayles presents a far more plausible and therefore chilling version of corporations worming their way into the government than The Manchurian Candidate did (not that we need a version more plausible or chilling than the one we currently have in the White House, but for the sake of the review we'll pretend that's neither here nor there).

The entire chain of discovery, with its focus on the poor Mexicans who labor for nothing and aren't missed if they happen to disappear, is classic Sayles material, very reminiscent of Lone Star. Danny figures out that the dead body, Benteen and the Pilager campaign all intercept in a new suburban development called Silver City, which is being built on top of an abandoned mine. Abandoned mines are always abandoned for a reason, wouldn't you think? Of course, if there's money involved, it's clearly best not for investors to know those reasons.

Intermittently, Sayles makes a brief return to Dickie on his campaign trail, making a fool of himself every time he stumbles away from his scripted speeches and preprogrammed responses. I wish he had widened his focus, and let the campaign escalate along with Danny's investigation. It might have been a much longer movie, but it might have been worth it; Sayles is a smart guy, and he's working with a terrific cast here. Anyone who saw ivansxtc. will be overjoyed to see Danny Houston in another lead role. Cooper is terrific, too, and the two of them are joined by Kristoffersen, Maria Bello, Richard Dreyfuss, Mary Kay Place, Billy Zane, Tim Roth, Thora Birch and a wonderful actor named Sal Lopez, who I've never seen before but who steals every scene he's in.

Many of these actors have very small parts, some barely more than cameos; the reason they're in this movie is not for exposure or for a paycheck, but because they share Sayles' political beliefs, and they wanted to be a part of this message he's delivering to theaters. The same surely went for the crew, including veteran cinematographer Haskell Wexler, who has done a few politically charged films himslef in the past (Coming Home and Medium Cool spring to mind). This is clearly a low budget affair, but it's got a charge to it. I just wish it were a little more even, although that it ends with one of the most deliriously perfect and darkly comic images in recent memory is just about enough to make me forgive it its flaws.

The day after I saw this film, I saw a documentary called Bush's Brain, based on the book of the same name, about Karl Rove and his connections to our commander in chief. It's a pretty lousy documentary, unable to support its hypotheses; it's hopping on the Farenheit 9/11 bandwagon, I fear, and that's a major turn-off. Silver City, on the other hand, contains a character played by Richard Dreyfus who one should immediately realize is based on Karl Rove. It's a minor character but a memorable one, and it made me think about Rove a whole lot more than Bush's Brain did.

And of course, that's all any of these films should inspire you to do come November... although one shouldn't begrudge them for really, really making it clear which way they think the outcome of your thought process should be.