The Apprentice (2024)
…………………………………………………
The Apprentice Movie Review
The Apprentice is a 2024 biographical film directed by Ali Abbasi and starring Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong. It’s an unsubtle, trashy propaganda of a movie.
………………………………………………….
“No matter what happens,
you claim victory and never admit defeat“
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
The story of how a young Donald Trump started his real-estate business in 70s and 80s New York with the helping hand of infamous lawyer Roy M. Cohn. First off, I have to say that the fall from grace for filmmaker Ali Abbasi has been quite dramatic. His movie ‘Border’ is one of my favorite films of the last decade, but The Apprentice is one of the worst movies of 2024. It goes to show that the aforementioned movie was sadly just a fluke, a film where he benefited from a tremendous source material. But his directing here was lacking in subtlety and was simply quite poor.
I went into this biopic with an open mind even though I should have expected a horrendously inaccurate and biased film from Hollywood that is very much suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). Reading the reviews online I was taken aback by how biased and dumb liberal audiences are and how living in the bubble made them susceptible to preaching to the choir. The audacity of some of these people to actually proclaim this a fair film is shocking.
Rare are movies that take such a drastic nosedive in quality from the first to the second half, but this is one such example. Yes, the first half was actually pretty solid. I had a lot of fun during this part of the story as it featured a brisk pace, fun humor and solid dialogue. The mentor-student dynamic between Cohn and Trump was also very engaging. The first half just worked. It was in that familiar biopic territory, but at least it was well written, well made and rooted in reality.
It is in the second half where the film became truly atrocious. It seemed to me that Abbasi realized a bit too late that he needed to make his anti-Trump agenda, so he rushed things up considerably and did such a hasty job that was simply horrible. Suddenly, we see Trump beating and raping his wife and going on surgery to take out some fat and battle with his hair loss. No matter what you think of this man, this wasn’t just the case of obvious propaganda, bias and agenda (most of it not proven or historically accurate even), but it also signaled obviously lazy storytelling. If Trump was really that terrible, the seeds should have been planted well before to make us believe in that arc, but going from a somewhat charming, nice guy to a full-on monster was ridiculous and just terrible filmmaking all-around.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
Even worse is the fact that this slanderous and overly graphic depiction of Trump’s shortcomings was extremely hypocritical, especially when you remember that this country also had a president who was immensely promiscuous (Kennedy) and a president who actually cheated on his wife (Clinton). But those two never were portrayed in this horrific fashion. Apparently, only Donald Trump is worthy of being depicted as a sort of ‘Frankenstein’ monster, the type of which even Hitler himself isn’t worthy of.
The Apprentice is worth seeing for the acting performances and for nothing else. It’s a shame that these terrific actors were wasted on such a terrible script. Sebastian Stan did such a good job in the main role. He wasn’t caricaturist, but more grounded all the while still selling the man’s accent and mannerisms. Maria Bakalova was phenomenal in the tragic (problematic) role of Ivana. I really liked her here.
But the standout I obviously Jeremy Strong. He was just as good here as he was in ‘Succession’. Roy Cohn was a truly despicable human being and the fact that the movie tried to humanize him toward the end only to further antagonize Trump did not sit well with me. Strong was incredible as Cohn – fully believable, charismatic and quite scary. This is such a phenomenal performance that it’s a shame that he’s not seriously considered for the Oscars.
The Apprentice is solidly made in terms of cinematography, score and production values. It sold its eighties look and feel very well. But the dialogue is as subtle as an earthquake and the characterization is painfully biased. This is not just political slander and propaganda, but simply terribly lazy storytelling. There is a scene where Trump purportedly gave Cohn a cheap gift and that sequence felt unrealistic and stupid in its every moment. It is disturbing that people would fall for these tricks as it just goes to show that most want to see what they want to see.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
The title of the most ridiculous movie of the year would have to go to The Apprentice. This is the kind of movie that can only appeal to those brainwashed Democratic voters in the US and nobody else. Not only is the level of political agenda, bias and slander genuinely baffling here, but so was the amount of lazy storytelling, horrible characterization and painfully dumb dialogue on display. It was so disappointing to me to witness such a terrible movie from Ali Abbasi, a director who made one of my favorite films of the last decade. What we have here is a solid first half that was actually subtle and well written and a second half that destroyed any goodwill gained before as this is where the director felt the need to vilify its subject to the point of absurdity, doing it in a painfully unsubtle and dumb manner. Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong were fantastic here, especially the latter, but they were wasted on a truly atrocious script and a film that can only appeal to the lowest common denominator. So yes, the movie is slanderous and inaccurate, but it would have been perfectly fine to criticize Trump, but not in such a painfully biased, unsubtle way and that is its worst offender.
My Rating – 2
Results
