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FILM DEPICTS MORAL DECLINE IN AMERICA
Posted November 17th, 2018 at 10:17 amNo Comments Yet
IN REVIEW
HART THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF POLITICS
By PETER THOMAS BUSCH
The life story of a United States Senator from Colorado provides the perfect script for one of Hollywood’s most talented actors to demonstrate all those skills developed over an already successful career.
Hugh Jackman portrays Senator Gary Hart in the biopic, The Front Runner (2018). The film’s narrative takes place during the 1988 Democratic Party primary campaign for a presidential nominee.
Director Jason Reitman also casts Vera Farmiga as Lee Hart, the wife of the US Senator, and JK Simmons as Hart’s national campaign director, Bill Dixon, as well as Alfred Molina as Washington Post executive editor, Ben Bradlee.
Reitman shows the increasing power of the press during a tumultuous time for America.
Bradlee managed the newsroom at the Washington Post from 1968 to 1991, during which he managed the news coverage of the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and the Iran-Contra scandals which challenged the validity of democratic power in the Oval Office.
The American public was becoming increasingly aware of the political corruption stalling real progress in Washington.
Reitman takes the audience inside the newsrooms with close ups of the editorial meetings juxtaposed with the scenes from the parallel narrative inside Hart’s campaign headquarters.
The scenes run more or less seamlessly between the narratives and also in the separate narratives with few time jumps through a script that covers about three weeks of real time events.
Reitman’s short filmography is highlighted with four Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Up in the Air (2009) and Juno (2007).
Up in the Air received 6 Oscar nominations in total but the film garnered zero wins at the awards ceremony.
Simmons was also cast in Up in the Air and Juno. Simmons is best known for his portrayal of managing newspaper editor, J. Jonah Jameson in the director, Sam Raimi, Spiderman trilogy (2002 – 2007), starring Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker.
The character actor received an Oscar in a Supporting Role for Whiplash (2014)
Reitman relies on the acting of his cast to compel the film narrative. The close ups and tightly cropped scenes often have several characters together while at the same time ensuring that the camera includes little details, like the pens and notepads of the editors and reporters, as well as the odd smoke ring.
Farmiga’s character acting in a supporting role plays well in this film as in other films opposite the most talented of leading actors. Farmiga’s acting credits include, The Commuter (2018), starring Liam Neeson, The Judge (2014), starring Robert Downey Jr and Robert Duvall, Up in the Air (2009), starring George Clooney, and The Manchurian Candidate (2004) starring Denzel Washington, Maryl Streep, and Liv Schreiber.
In the Martin Scorsese film, The Departed (2006), Farmiga plays a police psychologist caught in a deadly love triangle, starring Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. The Departed won Oscars for Picture of the Year, Directing, Adapted Screenplay, and Film Editing.
Reitman uses his experienced actors, Jackman, Farmiga, Simmons and Molina as the center pieces of the scenes and then the director also casts talented actors in supporting roles to fill out the foreground and near background of the shots.
Jackman is able to really move the narrative forward by exhibiting different acting traits in each scene while also assuming the identity of the biopic character.
Hart is shown at first as an earnest politician trying to save America from decline, but a moral slip during the campaign seems to reflect the lack of substance behind broad brush policy statements.
Jackman’s character discusses gearing up for the primary elections with his campaign team just as the newspaper hounds look for another Washington scandal to satisfy their readers’ growing taste for corruption stories.
Jackman shows Hart as a skillful strategist but also as a leading man with a moral disconnect inside him when he apparently becomes involved in an extra martial affair just as his presidential bid was gaining momentum.
The turn around in the narrative is a bit anti-climatic, but the director chooses to reflect the real life drama created by the media.
Hart pulled the plug on his campaign before the newspapers could really dig into his personal life. Hart had been accused of being a womanizer. The front runner gradually came to realize that the only dignified out was to leave politics before the scandal ruined his family and political legacy as a US Senator (1975-1987).
Reitman leaves the audience to decide whether the evidence merited the media coverage of the presidential hopeful’s personal life.
The media had justified the coverage as evidence of a lack of judgement by someone who aspired to the highest office of the world’s most powerful nation. Hart and the love interest refused to answer direct questions about the existence of an extra marital affair.
Jackman gives one of the better acting performances of his career, perhaps better than his Oscar nominated performance in the musical, Les Misérables (2012) and his leading role opposite Nicole Kidman in Australia (2008).
Jackman starred in the X-Men franchise films from 2000 to 2017. The Australian actor recently portrayed the biopic character P.T. Barnum in the musical, The Greatest Showman (2017).
Jackman is one of Hollywood’s most talented performers, who is able to act, sing, dance and be a showman, sometimes excellently all in the same performance.