The Ides of March (***1/4)

George Clooney denies wanting to be a politician, but he does play one well on screen. He must have especially enjoyed the parts where, as Pennsylvania governor and presidential hopeful Mike Morris, he gets to make inspiring speeches that’d do any Hollywood liberal proud. Morris’s campaign posters look just like the Obama “Hope” ones, only they say “Believe.” But what does he believe? After a reporter asks, he says that he’s not a Christian. Nor is he a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, etc. No, his sacred text is the Constitution. That director Clooney and his cowriters Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon (whose play Farragut North has been adapted here) apparently think a plausible candidate, even one in a Democratic primary, might say this—in a country where half the citizens say they wouldn’t vote for an atheist—might suggest they are a bit out of touch.

Nonetheless, you can probably like this just fine no matter what you think of its fictional candidate. It’s the politics, not the policy, that drives the plot, and the ultimately cynical take on the former may have bipartisan appeal. Political advisors and campaign workers, not candidates, are the main players on this stage. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays Morris’s James Carville-like campaign manager, but Ryan Gosling, his number two man, is the pivotal character. Key roles also go to Paul Giamatti, as the campaign chief for Morris’s primary opponent, and Evan Rachel Wood, as the young intern whose blonde locks and flirty banter are enough to lure Gosling’s ambitious consultant into a tryst in a Cincinnati hotel.

As usually happens in political movies, scandal intervenes; the lesson of politics is that one small lapse in judgment can be the downfall of a candidate, or his advisor, or even a 20-year-old intern. I prefer a movie where the cynicism is more balanced with idealism, like Primary Colors, probably my favorite. (Though it’s probably less appealing to conservatives.) There is a superficial resemblance to that in the themes here, but Colors was to me a heartbreaking drama about the disappointment of true believers, not just a good yarn. Certainly the advisors here are not closet Republicans or anything. But they are more jaded, and Clooney’s movie is more straight political thriller than anything. That said, it is a fairly riveting one. Clooney’s storytelling is as economical as in his earlier Good Night and Good Luck (also written with Heslov). Even a Republican could love it.

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viewed 10/13/11 at Ritz 5 and reviewed 10/13/11

Man of the Year (**1/4)

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? Robin Williams plays the host of a comical politically oriented comic talk show who runs a surprisingly successful populist campaign for president.

+ Laura Linney does a nice job as a computer geek who uncovers a glitch in the nation’s new electronic voting system. Christopher Walken plays the candidate’s surprisingly level-headed advisor. Some parts are funny.

- Director Barry Levinson’s already made one political satire, the somewhat overrated Wag the Dog, but this isn’t actually satirizing anything. It’s hard to fathom what he and Williams were going for. The candidate’s politics rarely go beyond decrying “special interests” and stating that too much attention is being paid to a flag-burning amendment. His jokes reference Carmen Miranda and George Hamilton. Quite cutting edge, no? Hardly the stuff that would excite the electorate, or offend anyone watching this movie. The opposition is equally fictional and nondescript. But I guess the story is really about the reluctant but plucky whistleblower. She sees the candidate on TV and knows she can trust him. He sees her twice and is willing to risk his political career on her say-so. The incipient, tepid thriller element is complemented by Jeff Goldblum, who can do little with his standard evil businessman role.

= **1/4 A step up from Toys, Levinson’s last movie with Williams, but only just. It could have been better. Elements of the movie suggests a critique of the celebrity politician phenomenon as well as the idea that a politician’s private behavior ought to be the concern of the voters. But I may be extrapolating. Probably Levinson just thought it would be funny to have a candidate who inhaled, and who joshes that he’ll appoint a lesbian cabinet because it will be “more fun to think about what they’re doing behind closed doors.” Rolling on the floor yet? Recommended mostly for fans of Williams’s stand-up material, since he is nearly playing himself.

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