Hugh Jackman as Gary Hart
“THE FRONT RUNNER” My rating: B-
113 minutes | MPAA rating: R
It is easier to appreciate “The Front Runner” as a pivotal point in our political history than it is to warm up to it as a film.
The subject is Sen. Gary Hart’s 1988 run for the Democratic nomination for President, the allegations of sexual impropriety that brought him down, and the media’s recognition (however reluctantly) that from here on out a candidate’s private life is fair game for coverage.
It’s been well acted and incisively directed by Jason Reitman (“Up in the Air,” “The Descendents”), yet even as it carefully lays out the parameters of the Hart affair “The Front Runner” seems remote and chilly. Perhaps there are no warm fuzzies in the film because there were no warm fuzzies in the true story.
Hart (Hugh Jackman) was a charismatic liberal with all the right responses. For those who swung left he hit the mark on race, economic disparity, the rapidly evaporating Cold War and other matters. He might very well have made a great President, one who, according to an admirer, could “untangle the bullshit of politics so anyone can understand.”
Problem is, Hart was far easier to appreciate as a policy wonk than as an individual. His marriage to Lee (Vera Farmiga) seemed solid — children, rustic home in the Colorado Rockies — but Hart bristled at any attempts to plum the depths of their relationship. He insisted that the reporters covering him stick to the issues; his life behind the public image was off limits.
He wasn’t even on board with the usual photo ops, complaining that he was caught smiling “like some game show host.”
The screenplay by Reitman, Jay Carson and Matt Bai (on whose book it was based) runs on two parallel tracks.
There’s the insider workings of the Hart campaign, with an emphasis on tough-as-nails manager Bill Dixon (J.K. Simmons) and a host of young volunteers who see in Hart a politician who reflects their generational concerns.
Butler's Cinema Scene 