HEAD OF STATE

Rock in a hard place.

Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG-13 (mild profanity, some sexuality and drug references). At the E-Walk, the Chelsea, the Union Square, others.

IT’S one thing for Chris Rock to do a brilliant standup routine imagining mass panic among white Americans at the prospect of a black man being elected president.

But actually depicting this concept on film as the director, as well as the star, of the inept and unfunny “Head of State,” requires a different set of skills which Rock is sorely lacking.

Based on Rock’s awkward performances, it’s anybody’s guess why DreamWorks thought the comic was remotely ready to step behind the camera – much less why studio suits thought this toothless political satire (written by Rock and his frequent collaborator Ali LeRoi) was worth filming.

Rock plays Mays Gilliam, a financially struggling, obscure District of Columbia alderman whose grasping girlfriend (Robin Givens) has dumped him after pegging him for a loser.

But after he makes the headlines for rescuing a woman from a burning building, powerful Senator Arnot (James Rebhorn) taps Mays as a last-minute replacement for the party’s presidential candidate, who died when his plane collided with one carrying his running mate.

Arnot wants Mays to lose to set up his own presidential run in four years against the likely winner, the sitting vice president whose main claim to fame is he’s Sharon Stone’s cousin.

(Stone wisely doesn’t show up – nor do Hillary Clinton and the other pols whose names are mentioned jokingly in the opening credits.)

Mays tanks at first in the polls, but he suddenly starts gaining momentum after he throws away the script for a speech and launches into an impromptu standup routine about social injustices in America.

It also helps when he enlists his older brother Mitch (Bernie Mac, whose role is much less prominent than the ads would have you believe) as his running mate – because no one else wants the job.

The sloppily shot, crudely edited “Head of State” fails as satire, for starters, because of its utter disconnect from any kind of reality – for starters, Mays is apparently a black Republican in inner-city D.C.

Rock can be one of the sharpest political comics around, but he seems benumbed when he’s not behind a lecturn – his love scenes with a gas station attendant (Tamala Jones) are particularly groanworthy.