The Front Runner

I truly wanted to give this a chance because of the great stars. But with the insipid and cloying musical score accenting how sad it is that old-fashioned mores can hold a great man like Gary Hart back, I became nauseated. The hypocrisy drips all over you like acid. Everyday every foible that can be ripped apart and exploited by Hollywood and the media fills our brains about middle class people who have traditional beliefs and did something non-PC, like the ribald and terrible drinking parties Justice Kavanaugh attended in high school (fabrications). We are not talking about religious people per say but ordinary folks that believe in ethics and values like honesty, morality, fair play, truth and temperance. If they are caught with their pants down all hell breaks loose. This film is non-stop speech making about how cruel, biased and unfair the world is to great men because they lie and cheat. He was not a great man so why does Gary Hart get a big-budget film to extol his wonderfulness? Simply because he is a liberal. Hollywood will do anything to support a liberal. Gary Hart's wife has stuck with him. He remains married say the credits, and Donna Rice denies they ever slept together. But photos show her in a hot and sexy t-shirt on Gary's lap with his hands all over her. They are caught on camera on a boat trip having a blast. Of course you should all believe this was an absolute tragedy the next time you vote because the world is so full of despicable middle-class folks with values that say you should tell people the truth about your affairs and hot babes and cheating on your wife. Gary never told the truth and he went down. He regularly chastised anyone who asked about his many affairs. Gary Hart had already lost against Mondale and was a tired, worn-out rerun trying to win the Presidency because he was a filthy rich elitist and liberal. The script has some good parts as when his own people want to know what happened on the damn boat. But Gary just keeps making speeches about having a personal life. We must therefore sympathize and regret such judgments the next time a liberal is exposed. Yet we could all reel off so many hate-films about people who were traditionalists and were totally trashed for committing far lesser faux pas. But the fix is definitely in as most people know when it comes to the media, Hollywood and the far-left radicals they perpetuate. Fortunately this lost big money and was a box office flop. However, I am sure there will be a class at Harvard teaching morals and ethics in politics and using this film as a case study in regressive American values. Gullible youths will gobble it up and nod in accord.

I'm going to rate it 2 instead of 1 star just because I laughed hard at Bill Burr and Johnny Carson's archival bits. But I didn't really attend the screening just to watch the comedic stylings of Burr and the late Johnny Carson. This movie seemed like it would have been far more relevant if it was released during the '90s, when the term "infotainment" was coined. As it is now, it's old hat. I was only fairly familiar with the '88 Hart scandal, yet I learned almost nothing about it, and the movie never really confronts anything that it's exploring-- issues that we've seen and experienced in the American political landscape for decades. We have known for a long time that the lines of politics and news and entertainment have blurred severely. This movie plods along well-trodden ground, and it doesn't produce a truffle. I think that J.K. Simmons' character phrased it best in this film when he flatly stated, "I don't give a f___." Skip it.

Jason Reitman's film (shot on 35mm by Eric Steelberg) starts off as a Fly On The Wall treatment of Gary Hart's 1988 campaign for President, before dissolving into a typical docu-drama crawl. Too bad, as the early scenes have a certain rush of excitement and even verisimilltude. The momentum gets strangely derailed just when it should be peaking - when the Donna Rice / 'Monkey Business' sex scandal hits. Hugh Jackman is good as the candidate, even if he never quite nails Hart's voice (and, while Hart was a handsome well built guy, he didn't quite have the physique of Wolverine! - especially amusing in the lumberjack scene). Vera Farmiga and JK Simmons provide solid support as Hart's wife and campaign manager respectively. Sara Paxton gives Donna Rice a sympathy beyond the typical 'victim' stereotype, even she doesn't really look the part. It's been well chronicled that Hart's sexual escapades helped clear the path for Bill Clinton to clear that hurdle when his scandals hit (not to mention the current Prez). What THE FRONT RUNNER also shows is that Hart lacked the empathy and human dimension that Clinton had that lead to his winning the Presidency. Both Hart and Clinton were policy wonks, but, 'Slick Willie' was a fully rounded personality - love him or hate him. Hart came off like a stolid Senator from flyover country. THE FRONT RUNNER doesn't break any new ground (and offers little that will appeal to anybody under 50 who isn't a political junkie), despite it's fine start. Still, as an addition to the library of political films, it's an asset.

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source: The Front Runner

I have no idea what the 'sound departments' of the film industry today think is more important..............the words that carry the film or the added sound track that conveys mood? in this movie the sounds drowned out the words. i like Jackman and all other actors also gave a good performance. i like political intrigue but i nearly switched it off because a drumbeat drowned out everything for the FIRST 24 MINUTES!! it is definitely overlong, nearly 2 hours, but honest in the way it portrayed the press........it is one of those films i will not watch again.

Compelling film with Hugh Jackman pulling off a credible version of Gary Hart in this look at the fatal three weeks of his 1988 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Vera Farmiga is also good as his wife and J.K. Simmons plays his campaign manager. The film is split between covering his campaign and the reporters from the Washington Post and the Miami Herald who debated among themselves if the questions of Hart's alleged womanizing were important enough to pursue. It's a look back to a time when a story like this would sink a campaign and it did... The film has some unexpectedly strong moments when it focuses briefly on the idealistic young campaign workers and also when during a scene with Donna Rice and a young female staffer thats assigned to "manage" her... The film, after a brief prologue in 1984, spends all the time in those three weeks and it's very good for the most part.. A scene among Post staffers that tries to tie this into the #Metoo movement feels tacked on and unrealistic as having occurred in 1987 and the ending could have been a bit stronger but it's an effective film on its own merits.

I know you'll down vote this into the abyss, liberals, but deep down, I know you know the tone of this movie would have been entirely different had it's central character been a Conservative. Instead of slightly scolding investigative journalism, film makers would have been praising the liberal media as a beacon of truth and justice. The guy (Hart) was a philanderous scumbag and the film makers white washed the facts because they like his politics. What wasn't shown in the film was that Hart's relationship with Rice carried on for months, even after the scandal broke. And of course, to hit the trifecta, they had to throw in that feminist tirade in the newsroom of the Post, where ambiguous feminist reporter cries about Hart abusing his "power" to take advantage of women. My eyes rolled so far back into my head during this scene, I could literally see my own disgust for this character and this movie. Honey, all of those women were willing participants. "It takes two," so don't get it twisted.

Greetings again from the darkness. Jason Reitman has proven himself to be an outstanding filmmaker who delivers entertaining stories with insightful commentary often accompanied by biting humor. His excellent films include: THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, JUNO, UP IN THE AIR, and one of this year's most underappreciated films, TULLY. His latest is based on the book "All the Truth is Out" by Matt Bai (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Reitman and "House of Cards" Producer Jay Carson), and it tells the story of Colorado Senator Gary Hart and his derailed 1988 campaign for President. The film begins in 1984 when an idealistic Hart loses the Democrat party nomination to Walter Mondale, who of course, went on to lose the national election to Ronald Reagan. It then picks up as the 1988 campaign is underway and Hart is the party frontrunner, and some say the candidate most likely to win the Presidency. Hugh Jackson plays Hart and is unfortunately burdened with an ill-fitting and distracting wig meant to emulate the lush locks sported by the youthful looking Senator. Vera Famiga plays his wife Lee, and Kaitlyn Dever plays their daughter Andrea. Casting two such fine actresses matters because of what happened during the campaign. Senator Hart was the favored candidate of the young and the idealistic forces, though the details of his platform were never communicated clearly. Mostly, he was presented as the energetic candidate of hope versus the stodgy Republican Party that had delivered Ronald Regan for 8 years and was now looking to George Herbert Walker Bush. Everything changed for Hart when rumors of marital infidelity, and possibly even an open marriage, began to circulate. When the media asked him, he was defiant ... at times snapping in anger that his personal life was no one's business. We are taken inside the campaign via many familiar faces, including campaign manager Bill Dixon played by JK Simmons, and a terrific turn by Molly Ephraim as staffer Irene Kelly. We are invited on board the aptly named party yacht "Monkey Business" when Hart first meets Donna Rice (Sara Paxton), setting off what could considered be the birth of political gossip-columns. The Herald and Washington Post are key players here, as are editor Ben Bradlee (Alfred Molina) and iconic journalist Bob Woodward. Apparently this is supposed to show us how politics and the media coverage of politics changed with Gary Hart. Where the movie lets us down is in not providing any explanation to why Hart was the front runner, whether the U.S. or even the democratic party missed out on a great (or even competent) President, and how in the world Hart was so clueless as to why citizens might have an interest in his personal life activities that included sleeping with a woman (or women) that weren't his wife. By the way, the reason for the last one is character ... and we've since learned it's not as important as what we might have once thought. These are all key issues as to why this is even a story, and whether or not it's interesting enough to re-tell. Instead of details, we are bombarded with overlapping dialogue and frenetic editing designed to generate some buzz and energy. The reality is that Gary Hart was really not that interesting, and in fact, by denying the importance of character, he thumbed his nose at his supporters. This blip on American history is simply not enough to justify a 2 hour a movie, and Mr. Jackman never seems able to capture the essence of Hart (whatever that essence might have been). There is obvious relevance to how today's press treats personal stories, but a bland candidate makes for a bland movie.

Forget the seemingly stellar cast. You can't even hear them. I'm giving up on movies that don't meet the most basic technical criteria, i.e. decent sound that doesn't drown out all dialogues and actors who actually open their mouth when talking. The Frontrunner manages to deprive the viewer of both. It is the audio equivalent of the shakycam from ten years ago (like the 2nd and 3rd Jason Bourne movie): annoying and self destructive. Thanks but no thanks. Time is too precious to be wasted on films like this.