Review of The Ides of March (2011) by Michael W — 25 Jun 2012

A lot of people seemed disappointed in this film, as if it was supposed to reveal things about the political world we didn't already know. With all the press coverage of politics these days and the long history of back door deals and corrupt politicians there's little this movie could reveal about politics that could truly surprise.

A politician who slowly and subtly compromises his values at the urging of his advisors in order to enact the positive, compromise free change he and his advisors are so desperately fighting for is nothing new.

We saw it in Robert Redford's THE CANDIDATE and Mike Nichols' PRIMARY COLORS. This movie is neither of those and I mean that in a good way. This movies sticks close to all the nitty gritty details of runnings a Presidential campaign.

What this movie has that the others don't is a near Shakespearean in magnitude twisty plot line of character shifts, double crosses, tables turned unexpectedly and all around delightful surprises that make you realize more and more that the characters are capable of a lot more than you first expected.

I honestly didn't anticipate a lot of the plot twists and a lot of the choices these characters made. Being honestly surprised by the characters and plot of a "genre" movie...that's what I want from every movie.