Review of The Front Runner (2018) by Lincoln K — 10 Nov 2018

Compelling film with Hugh Jackman pulling off a credible version of Gary Hart in this look at the fatal three weeks of his 1988 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Vera Farmiga is also good as his wife and J.

K. Simmons plays his campaign manager. The film is split between covering his campaign and the reporters from the Washington Post and the Miami Herald who debated among themselves if the questions of Hart's alleged womanizing were important enough to pursue.

It's a look back to a time when a story like this would sink a campaign and it did... The film has some unexpectedly strong moments when it focuses briefly on the idealistic young campaign workers and also when during a scene with Donna Rice and a young female staffer thats assigned to "manage" her.

.. The film, after a brief prologue in 1984, spends all the time in those three weeks and it's very good for the most part.. A scene among Post staffers that tries to tie this into the #Metoo movement feels tacked on and unrealistic as having occurred in 1987 and the ending could have been a bit stronger but it's an effective film on its own merits.