This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
So this is a very different take on the original. So much so that it feels like a very different movie. The premise is somewhat the same, but it feels much more like a vilification of Willie Stark than the original.
Opening seven minutes of the film, I’ve gotta say it was jarring to hear all the accents from Sean Penn, Jude Law, and James Gandolfini (who him playing Tiny Duffy was the sole reason I decided to watch this). …
In college we watched clips of this movie to talk about political theory, demagogues, and populism. I’ve wanted to watch it in full for years now, and finally, Movie Club gives me a reason to. In today’s world, this movie ends up having a lot of similarities with a lot of current American politics and their draw to populism. It’s a good lesson to show that even so called “ideal” candidates can fall and be led astray.
Willie Stark’s rise…
The first 35-40 minutes of this movie, I thought I was going to hate this movie as I just didn’t feel a connection to it and the cringe was cringing hard. But after that, it flew by and really took me on a ride here.
Bill Nighy I think was a standout here. And I think his and Domhnall Gleeson’s characters relationship in this propels the movie extremely well. I think there’s a lot of fun side characters in this and the premise and rules are unique and fun as well.
Overall I wasn’t expecting to feel as much as I did. Very good movie
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
I’ve listened to enough podcasts about Leopold and Loeb to sniff out a bit of inspiration for this movie here. A silly concept but when you know that there are some people who actually believe that they are too intelligent or superior to be caught, and then do such a bad job at hiding the crime, you just can’t help but be intrigued at the buffoonery and the irony that they really aren’t as clever as they believe themselves to be.
