BEFORE: I finally got some action out of the human resources department at my proposed new job, so paperwork got filled out on Friday - not the actual hiring paperwork, but paperwork that authorizes them to do a background check on me. Heh, they're not going to find anything bad in my background, but that's only because there's nothing there for them to find, not even a parking ticket. Here's where my very boring lifestyle starts to pay off for me. I guess this will take a few days, so the new plan is to be out of the movie theater job and ready for the new job by September 1, which means I need to hand in my notice on Tuesday. This also means I need to hang in with my current job for another two weeks, but I can do that. Lately they've reduced my hours, because fewer people are going to the movies, and therefore no late shows on most nights.
Rose Byrne carries over from "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". Just two steps to "Black Widow" from here.
THE PLOT: A democratic strategist helps a retired veteran run for mayor in a small, conservative Midwest town.
AFTER: This film opens with a montage of U.S. presidential candidates running for office, mostly seen eating at various small restaurants, state fairs and lunch counters across the country. It's a necessary step in our political process, to get out there and eat a few corn dogs or loose meat sandwiches, in order to prove that they're "one of us". But it also means more archive footage that I have to keep track of, because I count even a still photo of a political figure as an "appearance", even though the IMDB doesn't always count this. Here I thought I was done with tracking politicians after the documentaries ended, but nope, I'm still at it. So every winning or losing Presidential candidate from JFK to Trump now moves up one notch on the list, this means we've got a new leader, and Oprah's tied for second place.
It's a bit hard to say what went wrong with this film, which only made less than half a million at the box office. Obviously, much of the problem was the release date, June 2020, just a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Were there even any movie theaters open then? I guess maybe a few in the heartland, but was anybody interested in attending? Why didn't they reschedule the release of this film for a few months later, when more theaters would be up and running? It's an odd choice - maybe this film was never expected to do well, so the release was merely a formality so the film could then get to cable sooner.
But there are other problems as well - first is the title, which makes this film sound a bit like a romantic comedy, which it is NOT. There's some possible romance implied between Steve Carell's character, Gary Zimmer, and his political rival, Faith Brewster, the other strategist for the Republicans. But if there is any kind of possible relationship between them, it's a really messed up one. This seems like maybe it's got a bit of a James Carville/Mary Matalin feel to it, (or maybe KellyAnne Conway & her husband) only it's all rivalry, and it's not even cordial at all. That's not a relationship, that's just two people fighting all the time, then. Then there's another possible attraction between Gary and his candidate's adult daughter, only she's quite a few years younger than him, plus she kind of gives me that vibe that she's not into men, plus the movie then manages to toss away any possible love interest potential there, for story reasons. Bottom line, this film needed a new title to stand out, one that represented what it was all about. "Swing Vote" was taken, but why not "Swing State"? The entire reason that this mayoral race in Wisconsin was important was because it was in a swing state.
But here's another question - maybe it's even a NITPICK POINT - would political strategists for the two main parties, who work on a NATIONAL level, take this much interest in a mayoral race, which is at the LOCAL level? I don't think so. This story was partially inspired by the 2017 special election for Georgia's 6th congressional district, which the Democratic & Republican funding groups spent more than $55 million on. But a U.S. representative works at that national level, so it makes some sense for each party to spend money to win that race, because in the end it's all about which party has more votes in Congress. For a mayor? No, that doesn't make sense at all, unless that mayor has the potential to one day run for U.S. Congress or President, but this guy's just a farmer, and very out of place speaking to large crowds, so does he even have that potential? Again, not likely.
So, bad title, bad premise, and I'm still looking for something to like here, something that makes sense, or is even a bit funny, but the movie functions better as a satire, an allegory that pokes fun at the way our political system works, or often fails to work, and on THAT level, maybe it delivers something, only by mid-2020, hadn't we all had just about enough of partisan politics, having made it through almost a full four years of the worst, most partisan President ever? I'm still not sure how we all survived, but then again, not all of us did, so there's that. The film starts with the disaster that was 2016 election, and then tried to follow a Clinton strategist as he tried to rebuild his career and his confidence - good luck with that. And it's a bit weird that he would do that via a mayoral race in Wisconsin, rather than looking for somebody to back to beat Trump, right? This would be like an actor getting fired from a movie and then deciding to go do a stage play in some small Midwest town, it would seem like they're giving up.
Then there's the larger point to be made, something about how SuperPACs can recieve unlimited amounts of money from anonymous donors, they pretend to be separate from the campaigns but they're really not, and then if their candidate loses, well, all that money has to go somewhere, and there's not much oversight or control on that. But again, would a city MAYOR have access to SuperPAC funds? I don't think that's how it works. But during this part of the film, it really starts to run off the rails with a physical comedy bit that doesn't work, something about a very old billionaire who's had a few strokes, and speaks through an electronic voice box, and also has a kind of robotic skeleton that moves him around. It's just not FUNNY, even though the old man is played by Bill Irwin. Is this supposed to be a Stephen Hawking-based gag? Or a dig on the ancient Koch Brothers? It's tough to say, but it just feels hurtful either way, and it brings the movie to a dead stop.
After that, I don't want to give any plot points away, but the last act made me feel like the whole rug had been pulled out from under me, and therefore that I'd completely wasted the last 90 minutes. From a narrative standpoint, a filmmaker should never want to create this feeling in the viewers. Imagine that with 20 minutes left to go in a movie, there's a big meteor that hits the town, and everybody dies. OK, that doesn't happen, but the story has a rough equivalent of that, which kind of negates everything that has gone before. Sure, it's a surprise, but it's the kind of twist that's so outrageous it calls into question everything that has come before it. A real political wonk interviewed during the closing credits assures us that it's possible, only it's never happened before, so, umm, is it really?
The one thing this film maybe gets right is showing just how low the strategists will go on both sides, from telling lies on camera to micro-targeting voters with conflicting empty promises. Sure, that can happen, and those are signs of a broken system, but then how do we fix this? There is a plan for fixing this, right? Pointing out problems without solutions isn't very funny, either.
I've got another NITPICK POINT with the restaurant in this small Wisconsin town - Gary tries to fit in with the locals by ordering a "Bud and a burger", and the joke is that the restaurant is the Hofbrau Haus, a German pub, so it wouldn't have either one. I disagree, because I was just at a German restaurant on Long Island last night, and I ordered a burger. True, it was called the "Mad Bavarian" burger, and it had fried pickles and potato pancakes on the burger, but it was still a burger. And even though German restaurants are known for German beer, any well-stocked bar in Wisconsin would probably have a few domestic beer options, just for the locals who might not be accustomed to fine German drafts. Plus, this German restaurant looks exactly like an American bar, it's not the kind of place with German flags and waitresses wearing dirndls and a bunch of polka music playing. The joke's designed to show how ignorant Gary is, that he can't tell that the bartender's been making the burger special for him and buying Budweisers from the deli next door, but the joke just doesn't work. Also, Faith then tells Gary that the bartender's been "pandering" to him by giving him what he wants, but perhaps the bartender was just trying to satisfy his customer? Plus, worst (wurst?) of all, the gag's just not funny.
I've got other N.P.'s, but I'm withholding them so I don't risk spoiling the twist - but there are plenty of other things that just don't work here.
Also starring Steve Carell (last seen in "Beautiful Boy"), Chris Cooper (last seen in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"), Mackenzie Davis (last seen in "Tully"), Topher Grace (last seen in "The Calling"), Natasha Lyonne (last heard in "Honey Boy"), Will Sasso (last seen in "The Female Brain"), C.J. Wilson (last seen in "The Trial of the Chicago 7"), Brent Sexton (last seen in "The Specialist"), Alan Aisenberg (last seen in "It's Kind of a Funny Story"), Debra Messing (last seen in "Lucky You"), Bruce Altman (last seen in "Arbitrage"), Bill Irwin (last seen in "Ricki and the Flash"), Desi Lydic (last seen in "We Bought a Zoo"), Christian Adam (last seen in "Richard Jewell"), Will McLaughlin (last seen in "Men in Black 3"), Jason Vendryes (last seen in "The Con Is On"), William Smith (last seen in "The Mating Game"), Kevin Maier, Tom Key (last seen in "Are You Here"), Charles Green (last seen in "Shaft" (2019)), Matt Lewis, Vince Pisani (last seen in "Jumanji: The Next Level"), Sasha Morfaw, Kelsi Macaluso, Eve Gordon (last seen in "The Circle"), Blair Sams, Pat Fisher, Rebecca Ray (last seen in "The Vault"), Nickolas Wolf, Ian Covell, Gretchen Koerner (last seen in "Shock and Awe"), Russell Davis, Matthew Knott (last seen in "Green Zone"), Megan McFarland, Parker Chapin, Doug Trapp (last seen in "Labor Day"), Karl Kenzler, Richie Moriarty (last seen in "Going in Style"), Andrea Cirie (last seen in "Norman") with cameos from Candy Crowley, Trevor Potter, the voices of Mika Brzezinski (last seen in "Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump"), Joe Scarborough (ditto), John Heilemann, Lester Holt (last seen in "Whitney"), Norah O'Donnell (last seen in "The Accidental President"), Chris Wallace (ditto), Jon Stewart (last seen in "Shock and Awe").
and archive footage of George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn Carter, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan (all last seen in "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project") George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford (last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), Richard Nixon (ditto), Lyndon Johnson (last seen in "MLK/FBI"), John Kerry (last seen in "The Report"), John McCain (last seen in "Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook"), Sarah Palin (last seen in "This Must Be the Place"), Donald Trump (last seen in "Bad Reputation")
RATING: 4 out of 10 spin doctors
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