DanEnjoysMovies’s review published on Letterboxd:
“You claim victory and never admit defeat.”
The Apprentice is directed by Ali Abbasi and stars Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong and Maria Bakalova.
Awfully bold of me to watch this the night before Election Day I know but I thought if there was ever a time to watch this it’s now, so I bit the bullet and gave this a rental. This is a biographical film with very little character to study. It doesn’t have anything new to say, but for a Frankenstein story of a madman who loses control of his monster, it’s well written, directed and acted. The great things about this movie is performances, Jeremy Strong as Cohn in the first half and Sebastian as Trump in the second half. The way Stan portrayed the transformation of insecure/awkward Trump to the person we know today was done so well. He really tapped into Trump’s mannerisms towards the end. You forget it even is Stan towards the end. Might be a career best performance from him well at least until I manage to watch A Different Man.
There aren't a lot of people that are in the middle for Trump, not many that haven't made up their minds about him regardless of where they landed. This movie shows the seeds of what would later become the Trump mindset and where he learned to do what he does, but it's strange to see him as our protagonist. While this movie does show his more despicable acts and his insecurities and obsession with appearance, it does undoubtedly put him in the spotlight as the person we are, maybe not rooting for, but watching with supposed interest. I'm just not sure who the audience is that would actually find that interest.
Overall kind of a weird movie and I’m not quite sure why it exists. Sure Stan, Strong and Bakalova are all very good but if this was meant to be a hit piece it’s not biting enough (to me at least) and it ends before he does any real damage. As a piece of education it feels too stylized and angry. Doubt people who like Trump would enjoy this either. Overall it’s a 6/10 mostly for the game cast but other than that this movie is funny sometimes, interesting at others, but overall is a head scratcher. Kind of like Trump himself I guess.
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