I knew going in that this was going to be a hard sell for me. There's a lot of competing elements here and it was going to take the unknown variables to determine if I liked it or not.
Cast
I like Geroge Clooney, a lot. Ryan Gosling proved himself this year with "Crazy, Stupid Love" and "Drive". Paul Giamatti is one of those actors I like but don't trust his choices in movies. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, well, how can hate him. Evan Rachel Wood, meh.
It doesn't matter much, because besides Gosling, everyone else is supporting players in the truest sense of it. They all have a couple scenes to shine and are serviceable the rest of the time. Wood doesn't make me a believer and Clooney isn't especially impressive (I'm cutting him some slack since he was also directing).
Plot
Within the bounds of an election story, you can't expect it to be action-packed. Accepting that, I still was not very impressed. There are no major twists I haven't seen before. I knew everything that was going to happen in some form and it felt very tired. All the characters are developed to be exactly as you would expect. The actors are very solid with what they are doing, but at no point does a character go through any sort of unexpected change or show any unexpected sides.
Politics
It's a story about the Democratic Primaries. The speeches are idealistic but to a much different audience than me. A movie like The American President is a good example of how you can do a movie about politics while still keeping vague about it. This movie had a few too many speeches slipping in so real political opinions. Let me be clear. I'd hate it if they did the same with Republican Primaries. I'd like this movie more if it was just about the strategy of winning an election, keeping the politics to a minimum.
Speaking of the Republicans, I will say the movie kept a muzzle on the opinions the filmmakers had about the Republicans. The worst thing they have to say about them is how they were better at playing this dirty game of campaigning. It's no endorsement, but I've seen these things go much differently in the past.
Weaknesses
I think I've been covering those. I can sum them up for fun though.
The movie is paced intentionally slowly. Anyone who doesn't like that should avoid this. The plot is very ho-hum. Most of the actors do good, not great work. Anyone thinking this could be an Oscar contender is wrong. Too many elements missing. I can't recommend it for theaters, but a lot of people could enjoy it as a Netflix rental.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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