Review of All the Way (2016) by Jeff B — 04 Jul 2016

A compelling counterpoint to Selma, one of the greatest films about Civil Rights in film history, All the Way never tells the whole story (thankfully, it's a stand-alone flick not a mini-series) but it presents the most faithful rendering of LBK ever committed to digital. One failing of Selma proved to be in casting Tom Wilkinson (an amazing actor in pretty much any motion picture but Selma) as the 36th President of the United States of America. Not only did the actor not resemble LBJ even marginally (in a film where David Oyelowo and Carmen Ejogo were absolute photo doubles for Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott, mind you), he refused to even use any trace of a Texas accent. Sure, it all comes down to performance but that's the problem. Johnson proved to be such a colorful, straight-talking, and pivotal piece of history and that character pretty much sits that aforementioned 2014 Voting Rights drama out. Here, realized by a brilliant chameleon-esque Bryan Cranston, the divisive but history-making spirit of the powerful Texan compellingly comes alive.

In this HBO drama based on Robert Schenkkan's award-winning play, Lyndon B. Johnson (Cranston) becomes the President of the United States in the chaotic aftermath of JFK's assassination and spends his first year in office trying to quickly pass the Civil Rights Act.

Warts and all, LBJ's life as president gets documented pretty much up until the moments presented in Selma, which took some flak for controversially villainizing Johnson. All the Way paints a way more complete portrait of the man and it's not always complementary. In fact, at times, it tries to paint too sprawling a portrait, cramming an entire history course into a little over two hours. While it embraces a scope slightly beyond the reach of the critically hailed play, however, it also smartly never pulls focus on a performance for the ages that achieves the polar opposite of the presidential pantomime antics on display in Lee Daniels' The Butler.

Bottom line: Both Sides Now.