‘Comey Rule’ shows clueless exFBI chief
Watching “The Comey Rule” is like spending three hours watching a cop fill out a parking ticket, while the house behind him is getting robbed. And not just robbed a little. We’re talking about pianos getting carried out the front door, while the cop keeps saying, “This car is 2 inches into the red zone, and I must enforce the law.”
Or to switch similes, it’s like watching a guy who is not even savvy enough to bring a knife to a gunfight. No, this is a guy who’d storm the beaches at Normandy carrying a tennis racket.
“The Comey Rule” is a twopart Showtime miniseries based on “A Higher Loyalty,” the 2018 memoir by James Comey, who was appointed FBI director by President Barack Obama and fired by President Trump. This is the same FBI director who — 11 days before the 2016 election — let the world know that he was reopening the case into Hillary Clinton’s emails and yet neglected to mention that other investigation into Russian interference on behalf of Trump.
The first part, which broadcasts Sunday, Sept. 27, takes the story up to the release of the Clinton emails. The second part, which plays the next day, takes place after the election, with Comey suddenly coming up against a new president who wants and expects “loyalty.”
There’s a deeper story here, but this show won’t tell it, partly because it’s too soon to fully gauge the consequences of Comey’s mistakes, and partly because it’s based on Comey’s own book. This should be a tragedy out of Shakespeare, of an otherwise good man who, deluded by pride and vanity, leads himself and his country to disaster. It’s the tragedy of a man who cared more about his organization than his nation, who conflated the two to the latter’s peril.
The series does touch on these ideas, but it softens them, too often presenting Comey as having no choice when he did have choices and by depicting him, at times, as some hapless victim of circumstance. This haplessness is compounded by the casting of Jeff Daniels, who is just wrong for the role.
First of all, Comey was 55 during the events presented, and Daniels is 65. I realize that for people under 40, that might not seem like much of a difference, so let me explain. Fiftyfive is like, “I can still be president someday” and “I do look handsome on TV, don’t I?” Sixtyfive is more like, “Does this chair recline all the way back?” and “Who the hell cares what I look like?” An older Comey might have been less preening, less rigid and less ambitious.
Also, just in terms of essence, there’s something squishy about Daniels, while Comey is decisive and charismatic.
To be perfectly honest, I can’t imagine who could possibly want to see part one of this series. It’s just recent bad history, played with a vague sort of breeziness that seems false, while we sit and watch and think, “Oh no.” Do Democrats care about
Comey? Do Republicans care about Comey? In any case, we’ve already heard Comey’s explanations for his actions. Don’t watch “The Comey Rule” expecting Comey to reveal any new depths.
The second part is a little more fun, because we get the Donald Trump of Brendan Gleeson, who is presented as an inscrutable monster, part mob boss, part idiot, part shrewd operator. If this were a comedy — if such a situation could be funny — the source of humor would be found in Comey’s coming facetoface with a repulsive Frankenstein of his own creation, one who is absolutely immune to Comey’s charm, his lawman posture and his pieties. Comey can no more impress Trump than a hunk of meat could impress a lion.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of part two is the portrayal of the people working inside the Trump White House. They’re all presented as weirdly cheery, like frightened children or members of a malign cult who are beginning to catch on.
It’s possible that “The Comey Rule” is simply coming out at the wrong time. Until the election and whatever chaos may follow are over, we don’t fully know the consequences of Comey’s actions, so it’s asking a lot that we should care about what this man thought and how he felt. It’s all very nice, Jim, that you tried to do the right thing, but 200,000 people are dead, and the economy has tanked and we got our own problems to deal with now.