Two peas in a limo: Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan in ‘The Apprentice’.
THE APPRENTICE *** (123 minutes) MA
Poor Donald Trump. As if surviving two assassination attempts wasn’t enough, now he has to withstand the less-than-flattering portrait he receives in The Apprentice, a volcanically biased, yet undeniably entertaining, view of the past and possibly future president as a young man trying to make it big in New York back in the 1980s.
Sebastian Stan (who played Winter Soldier, the only non-super-powered hero in the Marvelverse) does a superb job as Trump, capturing his eccentric mannerisms, signature conversational style and burgeoning ego as he morphs from being a visionary young go-getter and deal maker to a cold-hearted businessman and bad husband.
The film is driven by Trump’s relationship with combative legal eagle and advisor Roy Cohn, played here with matching conviction by Jeremy Strong.
Their association develops into a close friendship until Cohn finds himself on the receiving end of some bad treatment, thus showing what a complete brute Trump is, or was, depending on whether or not you like performing the Trump Dance on TikTok.
Designed as a primer to Trump’s manipulative and aggressive persona, showing his vanity and propensity for cruelty alongside his undeniable business acumen, the film is clearly intended to serve as a warning to voters in the upcoming US election.
Unsurprisingly, the film has attracted lawsuits from Trump’s people and even from one of its financiers, Dan Snyder, who mucked in on the understanding the film would be far more positive than it is, something he discovered wasn’t the case during an early preview that left him mightily displeased.
Certainly, the film takes liberties with the truth, the most egregious example involving how Trump allegedly raped his wife Ivana (played in the movie by Maria Bakalova from Borat 2).
The film takes its cue from Ivana’s statements during her divorce from Trump, not from her subsequent clarifications that Trump did not rape her and that they were “the best of friends”. (Here’s a good NBC article covering the matter.)
It’s a pretty poor state of affairs in biopic making when such a statement – on the record since 2015 – is blatantly ignored in favour of promoting an incident the alleged victim says didn’t happen.
That said, and as blinkered as the film is, the performance by Stan as Trump is nonetheless impressive, anchoring the film with strong support from Strong’s multi-hued turn as Cohn. There’s also a wonderfully barbed performance from Martin Donovan as Fred, Trump’s hard-to-impress father who found fault in almost every achievement, and from Charlie Carrick as Fred Jr, Trump’s troubled older brother.
Will the film have any impact on voters? That’s extremely doubtful. Films, songs, documentaries, celebrity endorsements and such like that seek to sway rarely have any play beyond the like-minded.
We saw this during the Thatcher years – does anyone remember the prolonged embarrassment of the failed, pop-driven Red Wedge movement? – Ronald Reagan’s reign – neither comedians nor political cartoonists could bring him down – and especially with George W Bush.
The brigade of pop artists and filmmakers who railed against him without rest for four years couldn’t keep him from being re-elected. Not even Michael Moore’s Oscar-winning, Bush-bashing Fahrenheit 9/11 had any noticeable effect.
So, enjoy The Apprentice for the politically slanted slice of light entertainment that it is and for Sebastian Stan’s colourful portrayal of Donald Trump. To bestow it with any sense of seriousness would be a mistake.
Given how the film only covers Young Trump, one ardently hopes there will be several sequels to come, bringing us up to the present day and beyond.
SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY ***1/2 (104 minutes) M
Made with love, care and a critical eye when needed, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story scores as a terrific bio-doc that fills in the details of the Reeve story, the broad contours of which most people are familiar with.
Obvious as it is to say, the life arc of Christopher Reeve ranks as one of the great ironies of the modern blockbuster era.
He started out playing Superman in the classic 1978 movie, hit the heights of fame and wealth, then became a real-life superhero after a horse-riding accident left him a quadriplegic.
Sorrowful and stirring in equal measure, the film tracks Reeve’s friendship with comedian Robin Williams, his relationship with women, his swelling ego, his run of film flops when not wearing the cape to his tragic accident and his subsequent, sometimes controversial advocacy for the rights of the disabled community.
If you manage to sit through this positive bio-doc without getting misty-eyed, please check for a pulse.
HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN **1/2 (99 minutes) MA
While Hellboy fanboys who regard the first several Hellboy movies as scripture will probably shudder at this film, most normals will take it for what it is – a horror movie starring Hellboy rather than a Hellboy movie interested in the lore of the comic book character.
While transporting a special arachnid by train, Hellboy (Jack Kesy) and government agent Bobbie (Adeline Rudolph) are sidetracked into the woods of deepest, darkest America where they encounter a typically warped community of occult followers. We’ve known for ages that any movie woodland will be populated will all sorts of deranged individuals.
The story is purely throwaway shoot-em-up mulch, but there’s a satisfying amount of gunplay and blood-soaked action for the undemanding.