The Front Runner (2018)
The Front Runner tells briefly about the rise and predominantly about the fall of presidential hopeful Gary Hart, a Democratic senator representing Colorado. While writer-director Jason Reitman strives for a busy verisimilitude, he mostly ends up with a cinema-verité–like jumble in which dialogue is often difficult to clearly discern. Worse, the film, while well acted, delivers virtually no real insights into the man whose story it tells, nor does it add much depth to the incidents that, ahead of the 1988 general election, torpedoed Senator Hart’s presidential aspirations.
**½ (out of *****)
©2020 David R. George III
2018 • 1 HOUR, 53 MINUTES
SONY PICTURES • BRON STUDIOS • CREATIVE WEALTH MEDIA FINANCE • RIGHT OF WAY FILMS
STARRING
• HUGH JACKMAN, VERA FARMIGA, J.K. SIMMONS
ALSO STARRING
• ALFRED MOLINA, MAMOUDOU ATHIE, KAITLYN DEVER, MOLLY EPHRAIM, SPENCER GARRETT, STEVE ZISSIS, BILL BURR, SARA PAXTON, KEVIN POLLACK
WRITTEN BY
• MATT BAI & JAY CARSON & JASON REITMAN (SCREENPLAY)
• MATT BAI (BASED ON THE BOOK ALL THE TRUTH IS OUT BY)
DIRECTED BY
• JASON REITMAN
NO 2018 ACADEMY AWARDS NOMINATIONS
