At first glance, “Grassroots” doesn’t seem like much of an idea for a movie. Nor at second, third or fourth glance. Your fifth glance will be at your watch, and at sixth glance your eyelids will be getting very, very heavy.
For this is the true story of a race for a City Council seat in Seattle in 2001. Joel David Moore, a beanpole actor born to play Shaggy in a community theater production of “Scooby-Doo,” plays an unemployed music critic named Grant Cogswell, who, after hiring a buddy (Jason Biggs) as his campaign manager, runs against an incumbent (Cedric the Entertainer) for a place on the City Council on the single issue of mass transit. Which the incumbent also says he supports.
Cogswell is considered a colorful character in Seattle for, I guess, swearing and shouting a bit, which indicates how little you have to do to qualify as special in that rainy and earnest burg. Yet the movie’s efforts at whimsy are uniformly dire. In the end, Cogswell either wins or loses. Do you care?