The Best Campaign Movies
Not so long ago, Harvey Weinstein, big-time Hollywood producer and infamous jerk, weighed in on a presidential campaign using the frame of reference that he knows best: movies. Weinstein declared that Barack Obama was like multiple-Oscar winner The King’s Speech, while Mitt Romney, who is ‘not capable to run [sic] the United States’ and is the Our Idiot Brother of the campaign. Regardless of how we feel about all that, it got us thinking: What are the best political campaign movies (not counting documentaries)? Here are some of our favorites:
The Ides of March - Despite only being the third-best movie to star Ryan Gosling in 2011, The Ides of March nonetheless proved to be a thoroughly entertaining political thriller that dabbled in some serious, heady questions about the nature of politics in the United States. It focuses on the career of Gosling as the prodigy Junior Campaign Manager in a tight campaign who is drawn into a web of real politicking and power brokering even as his idealism is shattered by some unpleasant revelations about the nature of his boss. It’s worth it to see just an impassioned speech on the subject of loyalty from Philip Seymour Hoffman.
The Best Man – This criminally forgotten movie from the mid 60’s not only features characters supposedly based on various real-life politicians, but is also centered around a now seemingly long-gone possibility in American presidential politics: the brokered convention. With a script written by Gore Vidal, Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson play two leading candidates for an un-specified party’s nomination, each with his own strengths and weaknesses, who must battle each other in a series of backroom deals, political maneuvering, and blackmail. It’s a tough no holds look at just what it takes to be win, even among your own political allies.
Primary Colors - In a similar exploration of the race for one's own party's nomination, though somehow both more dark and more funny, is this 1998 movie about a primary campaign that gets very ugly, very fast. But while other films on the same subject focuses on the compromises that people make and the divide between our perspective on our politicians and how flawed they really are, Primary Colors is focused more on the ruthlessness of American electoral politics and just how far people are willing to go to win. And, as a bonus, it was based on the Clinton campaign -- giving everyone even more reasons to be disappointed in the former First Family.
The Candidate - Yes, they were just as cynical about politics back in the 1970's as we are now, as this drama -- starring Robert Redford as a straight-shooting political novice who runs for Senate -- illustrates. Redford’s character, Bill McKay, is given license to say whatever he wants, since he is guaranteed to lose. Unfortunately, at some point, he decides he wants to win, and the movie depicts the campaign’s slow erosion of his political integrity. The titular candidate is corrupted -- but by his own choice.
Election -- Thankfully, not all campaign movies are so terribly depressing, as this, the first film from multiple Oscar nominee Alexander Payne, illustrates. Payne used the cut-throat arena of a high school student government election to satirize American politics, as a vicious three-way race (you guessed it) brings out the worst in all involved. Cynical? No doubt -- but this one, at least, is still wickedly funny
[Pic via screengrab of Ides of March trailer]
