Review of The Front Runner (2018) by Alan W — 06 Nov 2018

In Hugh Jackman's latest bid for Oscar glory, he proves his range and adaptability as he plays Senator Gary Hart in Jason Reitman's latest film that charts the three short weeks in which Hart's 1988 Presidential campaign comes unstuck.

While Reitman's direction is unfussy and competent, the script he co-writes with Jay Carson and Matt Bai, based on the latter's book, is muddied and confused as it attempts to cover too much ground and has too many conflicting ideas floating around, and we are left with a film that doesn't know what it fundamentally wants to say.

Should the press exposes hypocrisy even if they have to stoop low into the gutter about the candidate's personal lives? Or should politicians who have great ideas and noble motivations be given a wider berth regarding decisions made by consenting adults behind closed doors? Ably supported by a cast of familiar faces, in particular, J.

K. Simmons as Hart's beleaguered and exasperated campaign manager (a role he can do in his sleep) and Vera Farmiga as Hart's quietly suffering wife, this is a good looking film that may shed some light on how this particular campaign goes downhill.

However, it is no match with those political thrillers of the 70s & 80s that it tries to invoke stylistically or better films recently such as Spotlight and The Post. It is simply not enough for this day and age to say that the relationship between politics and the press is an uneasy one without further elaboration or to boil everything down to one line about society getting the leaders they deserve.

As a result, the film left me feeling cold and a little disappointed.