Should Jackman get your vote?
He dabbles in politics in “Front Runner.” Review,
You’ve heard of an October surprise. This is a November disappointment.
Directed by Jason Reitman (“Juno,” “Up in the Air”), the electoral drama “The Front Runner” ( ★★☆☆; rated R; in theaters Tuesday in New York and Los Angeles; additional cities Nov. 16, opens nationwide Nov. 21) chronicles the downfall of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman) over three publicly disastrous weeks in the spring of 1987.
The movie itself is an also-ran as well, a bargain-bin “All the President’s Men” mixed in with a cautionary tale for politicians in the #MeToo era. The muddied narrative unfolds from three different perspectives – that of Hart’s family, the campaign and the press – with so many different characters running around that you sometimes forget Jackman’s in the film. Even Aaron Sorkin would have a hard time juggling this cast.
Hart first gets national recognition during the 1984 election cycle as a progressive guy with loads of idealism (“To change the world, young people need to give a damn,” he says), and three years later he’s seemingly the man to beat in ’88. With gruff Bill Dixon (J.K. Simmons) as his tireless campaign manager, Hart is a media darling and cover boy for People magazine, though he questions why the public needs to know that much about his personal life to vote for him.
Of course, they’ll know way more than they’d ever expect when Hart, already rumored to be a womanizer, ends up on a boat in Miami called “Monkey Business” schmoozing model Donna Rice (Sara Paxton). Reitman and cowriters Matt Bai and Jay Carson never show anything untoward, leaving the viewers to make their own call about Hart’s character. Miami Herald journalist Tom Fiedler (Steve Zissis) is tipped off about the hanky-panky, and he’s part of a crew that stakes out Hart at his Washington home, confronting him on the street and publishing the story that puts his campaign in jeopardy.
“Front Runner” digs into the changing of the guard in journalism at the time, with Washington Post warhorse Ben Bradlee (Alfred Molina) lamenting the more sensationalistic, tabloid ap- proach media is taking. Young Post writer A.J. Parker (Mamoudou Ali) almost looks up to Hart yet is forced to interrogate a seething candidate about his indiscretions.
The movie also explores intriguing subplots for its women. Hart’s wife, Lee (a great Vera Farmiga), gets caught up in the scandal, and she’s forced to weigh her husband’s ambitions with the paparazzi camped out in her front yard. And instead of Rice simply being the sexual conquest, Paxton’s portrayal is of a woman dealing with the horrifying realization that her privacy has been taken away.
So many personalities, though, just aren’t fleshed out enough, most notably Hart. In “Front Runner,” he’s this universally beloved guy who captures the country’s attention enough to be a viable commander in chief, and Jackman on paper is a no-brainer, since the man is a charisma machine. Who wouldn’t vote for the erstwhile Wolverine as president? Puzzlingly, however, his Hart is kind of a jerk, with a lot of scowls, annoyed looks and angry body language as his life spirals.
“Front Runner” revels in its winking, timely moments, such as Hart pointedly admitting that folks could be turned off serving their country “because someone will dredge something up you said in a moment 15 years ago and act like it somehow encapsulates your life.” But as a hot-button political tale, it’s bound to just stoke a bunch of moviegoer apathy.