‘COMEY’ IS BACK IN ELEX MESS
Showtime picks ’16 scab as 2020 looms
Showtime will demand loyalty from viewers as they tune in to watch “The Comey Rule” — a two-night, four-hour miniseries premiering Saturday.
Four years after the fact and weeks before the upcoming election, the cable movie network is diving into the justifications behind former FBI director James Comey’s decision to reopen the probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails just days before the 2016 presidential election.
That may be a tough sell for many viewers, considering Comey was blamed for some and credited by others for the election of President Trump.
“I get the sense that Jim Comey has a deep sense of integrity and right and wrong and a deep sense of mission and I think he feels, given the information available to him at the moment, that he absolutely did the thing that was consistent with that mission,” “Comey Rule” showrunner Billy Ray told the Daily News.
According to Ray, “The idea was always to tell the story about what happened to our democracy in 2016 in time for people to do something about that in 2020.”
Inspired by Comey’s 2018 memoir, “A Higher Loyalty:
TTruth,th LiLies, andd LLeadership,” d hi ” Ray wrote his latest miniseries with help from the former FBI director.
“I have a lot to say about America and I’ve made a lot of movies about my country before but this is the first time I’ve ever felt compelled to make a movie for my country,” said Ray, whose resume includes “Shattered Glass,” “State of Play” and “Richard Jewell.”
“The Comey Rule” features all the players, including Comey (Jeff Daniels), thenRepublican presidential nominee Donald Trump (Brendan Gleason), President Barack Obama (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe (Michael Kelly).
The story is pulled from the headlines, with voiceovers from Trump’s speeches.
Scenes include Comey’s wife and daughters attending the Women’s March, which was filmed the same day the impeachment hearings on Trump got underway just down the street, Ray said. The June 2016 massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub is also depicted.
“This is an administration that their way of operating is to throw new crazy at you daily. They’re shattering norms daily,” Kelly told The
News. “We need to go back and be reminded what happened leading up to the election, during the election and is still happening.
Fans of the political series “House of Cards” may recognize Kelly as president’s Frank Underwood’s chief of staff Doug Stamper.
“We know, for a fact, all the intelligence agencies say it, that there was interference from foreign actors in the 2016 elections,” Kelly said. “We know for a fact that they did it and we know for a fact that they’re doing it again.”
Ray insists he’s not trying to influence the election with his film, but rather, to tell a story about public servants.
“A love story about a man and his institution,” he described.
The producer expects some tweets from the President.
“I think it’s highly likely that I get a mean nickname,” Ray joked.
Showtime briefly scheduled “The Comey Rule” to air in late November, after the election. It was bumped-up two months so that viewers could absorb its complexities now.
“I’ve seen no signs around me that the American public is tired of talking about Donald Trump and no signs that the American public has lost its curiosity about this presidency…the norms that have been shattered by it and the cost of all of it,” Ray said. “I think people have absolutely an unending thirst for insight into why Donald Trump does the things that he does.”