This biopic could be subtitled “How to Make a Monster.”
In 1973, Donald Trump, a newly-minted member of the exclusive “Le Club” in New York, met notorious lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn.
Donald (Sebastian Stan – “Avengers: Endgame”) is there with his date (Jaclyn Vogl) bragging about his club membership and pointing out the powerful people sitting at other tables. She asks him why he’s so obsessed with these rich, powerful men. He denies it. Disbelieving and slightly disgusted, she leaves to powder her nose. She never comes back. This is a telling first scene in the development of the man who would one day be president of the United States.
Sitting at a table across the room is another man surveying the crowd. His eyes latch onto the now solo Trump. It’s Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong – “The Gentlemen”), ruthless prosecutor of the Rosenbergs, assistant to Red Scaremonger Joe McCarthy, and now a man both sought out and feared by the powerful who need ruthless legal representation, but also know he isn’t above bribery and blackmail as the situation requires. We are given a complex image of Cohn: rabidly patriotic, yet contemptuous of American society and its laws, which he violates with abandon.
Cohn takes an interest in Donald, who is still under his real estate magnates father’s thumb, but has ideas of his own and needs help breaking free and making a name (and fortune) for himself in New York society. Cohn begins the process of building the future brash, self-aggrandizing, world-dazzling Donald J. Trump.
Director Ali Abassi (“Holy Spider”) and writer Gabriel Sherman have given us a fascinating look into the process by which Roy Cohn almost literally remade Trump in his own image. Along the way, we get to see Trump’s relationships with his brutal, racist, money-fixated father Fred (Martin Donovan – “Tenet”), his doting mother MaryAnne (Catherine McNally – “Out of My Mind”), his psychologically crushed older brother Freddy (Charlie Carrick – “Alice, Darling” ) and, of course, his first wife Ivana (Maria Bakalova – “Bodies Bodies Bodies”).
With each step, Trump takes on more and more of the personality of Cohn, his philosophy, even his mannerisms. But he also begins to break free of Cohn’s advice and caution – his Atlantic City casino business being an example.
At the end of the film, when discussing a book (“The Art of the Deal”) to be ghost written by journalist Tony Schwartz (Eoin Duffy – “Deadly Cuts”), Trump explains his three rules for success: 1. Attack, attack, attack. 2. Deny everything; admit nothing. 3. Always claim victory. Trump has put them in his own words, but these are the three rules taught him by Roy Cohn – three rules he has made his own. The transformation — and the monster — are now complete.
Abassi has gotten fabulous performances from his actors, especially Jeremy Strong as Cohn. He is truly frightening, displaying fleeting glimpses of his humanity only near his death when he has been discarded by his apprentice.
Viewers will take away different messages from this excellent film: Trump is either a threat to the integrity of our society and our nation, or he is the imperfect but patriotic leader we need to survive in a ruthless age. Whichever message you take, you will appreciate and long remember this film.
Runtime: Two hours, two minutes
Availability: In theaters now, later on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Vudu and others.
. . .
Join us on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/itsjustmovies!