If ‘LBJ’ feels stunted, the fine acting offsets it
LYNDON Baines Johnson has been a hot commodity of late, at least in the entertainment world.
Liev Schreiber took a stab at portraying the 36th US president in the 2013 film
In 2014, Tom Wilkinson, as LBJ, joined forces with Danny Oyelowo’s Martin Luther King jr in
Last year there was a bumper crop, with both John Carroll Lynch (in and Bryan Cranston (in HBO’s based on the stage play) portraying versions of the late commander-in-chief. Each portrait had its upside.
But I suspect none of these actors had as much fun bringing to life the cagey and colourful political vulgarian as his fellow Texan, Woody Harrelson, seems to be having in
crudely and rudely drawling his lines behind a wall of latex make-up, plus-size prosthetic ears and horn-rim glasses that obscure his own facial features.
It’s a kick to watch Harrelson’s blustery good ol’ boy threaten to take a hatchet to one underling’s male member after the aide fails to deliver an exact vote count on a bill, and later, as he indulges in a leisurely open-door bathroom break during a meeting with two political advisers.
Yet director Rob Reiner keeps the movie surrounding these shenanigans reined in.
The result feels like an instal- ment of a 1980s miniseries that’s been preserved in amber rather than a complete and fulfilling production.
Punctuated by regular flash-forwards to November 22, 1963 – when President John F Kennedy was assassinated – the film presents a mostly linear account of how Johnson, then a US senator, went from losing the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination (to the handsome young candidate from Massachusetts) to becoming Kennedy’s running mate CAPTIVATING: Woody Harrelson h