Second Bananas and "The Contender" by Alan Farrell

 

For those wicked among us who can remember the current occupant of Blair House (they still live there, right?) as a once-and-future presidential candidate bare-pated (the plugs have taken, mercifully) and plagiarist (joins the phalanx of famous personages taken in flagrante and got a pass from public and media... mostly on account of media have fallen victim to same affliction), his wash-up in the Vice-Presidensity may seem apropos ( a lot like "appropriate," but, like, you know, classy on account of French), a safe venue in where to bury a career, a personality without luster, a shade without shadow, a stand-in without hope of singing that major aria, planting that burning kiss upon the heroine, playing the lead role. Some there have been to mount the stage ultimately--Roosevelt (the real one), Coolidge, Truman--and shine; others--Ford, Snarffington (never heard of him? Just goes to prove my point)--not so much. Anyhow. Seems to be a particular irony to the guy who manifestly and publicly dreamt of being president, ran for the office, failed, then wound up as the alternate, fated only to hope against hope someday (after a calamity) to be calife-à-la-place-du-calife. Most (some? a few? a couple? Got to check in with somebody of at least feigned interest in, pretend knowledge of political stuff for actual fact. Never been tempted, my own self.) of these, far as I can tell, when offered the position on a ticket, refuse... out of vanity, dignity, pique. So here come two wildly disparate visions of the Veep's inner being, the one dramatic, the other funny as hell, either one possible, both more appealing than what we might with hesitation--and some regret--call actuality.

The Contender. Been around since 2000, I think, but largely unnoticed at the Cineplex... on account of well-written and thoughtful and no car chase (although, curiously, there is some skin... of the doggie-style persuasion, too, but whom's yet the mystery). Directed by: Rod Lurie and written by him... West Point graduate who served in Armed Forces (well, not exactly: Air Defense Artillery... urf! urf!) then did couple pseudo-historical, power-corrupts--no, really?--jabs like Last Castle and that horrible thing about the yellow-cake scandal, for which he snagged high-cheekbones, pouty-lips, tight jeans (actually tight leather catsuit as vampire-huntress, but, hey...) diva Kate Beckinsale to play a high-cheekbones, pouty-lips, tight-jeans (no jeans in the office but pencil skirt accomplish about same function when thus swaddled you bend over the water cooler) refugee from The Company typing pool who marries a diplomat, then passes for "agent" under deep c(l)over. Starring: Jeff Bridges, Joan Allen, Gary Oldman, Christian Slater, William Petersen, Saul Rubinek, Sam Elliot.

Terrific cast, right down to the B's on the roster. Peek inside the machine where the principal features are naughty language and moral casuistry (as opposed to fishbait casuistry or mucus membrane casuistry, the more common flavors). It appears, in vice-versimilary to what you might predict, that the sitting (!) Vice-President has died, the which leaves a lame-duck President (Jeff Bridges, scrubbed up and haircutted for once: Fisher King, Wild Bill, Lebowski) to nominate a replacement, perhaps for the good of the Nation, certainly for the legacy of the President, Somebody Evans (doesn't seem to have a wife, so nobody calls him by his first name that I remember, always "Mr. President"; de Gaulle, evidently, never cared for that bourgeois epithet, always insisting on "Mon Général." I mention only because, based on sweatshirt evidence, it appears that Mr. President Evans went to West Point--like his creator--and likely made captain at least, so coulda been called "O Captain, my Captain"... no, wait a minute... that was t'other one, well, anyhow...). Evans aims, naturally, for a guy... on account of, you know, women get to feeling icky every 24th of the month, so can't be trusted with those big decisions and, inevitably, The Button. Our guy in the event, Jack Hathaway (Petersen, looking worthy and citizenly and candidately), has jumped in the lake to save a woman driven off a bridge (yeah, yeah... I know) but manages not to retrieve her (yeah, yeah... I know). Noble gesture but whose failure dooms his candidacy in the eyes of oily political operatives surrounding Evans. Otay... who's next up? Can't come up with a competent male, closest bet would be a very competent woman. We got one of those to hand? Well, maybe.

Choice lights on Laine Hanson (Allen), daughteress of a former state Governor, respected and putatively respectable Senator, articulate and--doesn't hurt--not unattractive ( a word here about Joan Allen: comely but somehow not really sexy and dunno why: Great actress, forbiddingly distant, can be pinched and given to flights of logic, discrimination, and self-assertion for which vicious males have confected a word beginning with letter b- and rhyme with "stitch." Go figure. She is magnificent in the likewise unnoticed Upside of Anger, which see on account of a virtuosity piece that belongs to her alone though showcases early on Jessica Chastain, of recent Oscar (Tm) notorietude). Vetted, in the term of art, by White House agents, Senator Hanson seems a fine choice though old crocodile of a Congressman Shelly Runyon (a sinister Gary Oldman doing his unctuous sinisterest in eyeglasses and wispy forehead, particularly unappetizing manifestation of homo polluticus) has it in (so to speak) for any old fee-male candidate (see above objection re: ...24th of the month). Into his lap fall simultaneously an ambitious bulldog of a Representative from Delaware of all places (Christian Slater, in a viscous slather his own self) annnnnnd incriminating documentation of a wild frat party years ago when the buck naked Hanson cavorted with the bros from Zeta Kappa Puta at a party... apparently did the entire rugby team... twice... on all fours.
Armed with this ripe nugget, Runyan presses the Man to pull his candidate. Aides in the office (Elliott, Rubinek, potty-mouthed minions, not malicious actually but loyal to a fault and with Evans' public image at heart) strive to dragoon Hanson first into refutation of the charges or else into acquiescent contrition or, worst case, into decent retraction of her candidacy. She says no to all three, refusing to dignify, in the term of art, the accusations or even discuss them. It all gets resolved, happy to say, toward the Virtue of the Republic in a Walpurgisnacht, double-bluff, trick shot, never-saw-this-one-coming, feel-good moment of come-uppance and triumph that, though satisfying, piles little enough upon the midden of our waning admiration for the political caste in charge of the joint. Ouch! Ranks with flicks like The Candidate (Redford) and The Best Man (the real one with Fonda) in dramatizing the undramatizable, supplying motion to the immobile.


Veep. Created by: Armando Iannucci although I can't find a cited Director but instead a gazillion Producers, whatever it is they do, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus among them in the number, too. Starring: The above Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tony Hale, Anna Chlumsky, Matt Walsh, Reid Scott, Timothy Simons, Sufe Bradshaw, some never-heard-ofs but all first-rate, notably Matt Walsh the doctor from The Hangover, handyman from Community, the Agency Head from Ted, magisterial pompous twit, fading genus on the screen but alas the reigning dynasty out here.
Story goes like this: Selena Meyers has run for President but flagged early in the race. The President His Own Self (whom we never see and about whom we demand constantly to know "Did the President call?" only to learn once more that no, he didn't), inspired either by noble sentiments of the justness of time for a fee-male deputy or by cynical political motives aiming at the Gyno-American voting bloc, takes on Selena, whom he immediately consigns to the Nether World of stroking recalcitrant congressmen, brunching with lobbyists for untoward constituencies (she has to peddle celery stalks to the fat guys from the restauranteurs bund; soy bean--or corn starch... like, what's the difference?-- flatware to the plastic manufacturers' guild and on and on, representing the Administration at appropriately small-scale disasters, scrounging votes and shooing Presidential dadas through the Senate, allthewhile trying desperately to find a non-invasive but culturally-significant issue upon which to hang her legacy (and her hopes to remain on the ticket another term).

She is seconded in her second-bananning by what's evidently the second team among Washington staffs, a collection of vaguely-animated, occasionally-competent, congenitally-misinformed adjuncts whose task it is to shepherd Selena through the maze of obstacles and gaggle of malevolents who skulk the big city on the Potomac: a remorselessly efficient secretary, Sue (Sufe Bradshaw); Jonah, a devoted but useless sycophant, able at a moment's notice from his tote bag to extract anything from Kleenex (Tm) to Midol (Tm) that Madam Vice might require (Tim Simons); a young woman, Amy, perhaps more enamored of the idea of a woman in the office than of Her currently seated in it (Anna Chlumsky... might look into a name-change, Sugar); an ambitious shark, if I've got this right (Dan) or if not the other way around and it's Gary, with nonetheless blunted young lion's teeth but ever-sharp killer instinct though directed rather at, like, field mice and stuff (killer loyalty, too: kill anyone who imprudently misplace loyalty in him); the Chief of Staff, Mike, the always perfect and perfectly fussy Matt Walsh, anything but sharp yet just capable enough to hover perennially on the brink of dismissal for cause (idiocy). At intervals stumbles in a great galumphing goof of a White House aide, Gary (or Dan if it's not him), whose principal delight is announcing that he comes from the White House, typically freighting yet more frustration and humiliation... or indifference for Selena. Don't suppose one could find such a menagerie up to the Headwaters, do you? Nah...
Heart of the ensemble is Louis-Dreyfus, never better, still addled but ferocious. She wobbles precariously, plaintively through the halls of power on four-inch heels wearing a perpetual smile of bonnefemmie, zipped into an increasingly snug array of pencil skirts and sheath dresses, not unflatteringly stuffed, your reviewer permits himself to add, by a what? ...fifty-year-old woman (a bottom far from foggy, a churlish adolescent might be tempted to note) to whom we've granted a lubricious dimension here: "...Chardonnay was drunk," she announces in one episode, " ...the Eagles were listened to, unprotected sex was had." She transpasses handily (perhaps a little too handily) from ditzy Elaine to potty-mouth Selena, presiding over a lesser kingdom where the idiom, every other word (from her, from her staffers, from intrusive politicos, lobbyists, constituents) is the F-bomb(let), now omnibiquitous enough so as not to provoke more than laughter... though the energy and creativity with which said word gets explitivated, infixated, declaritivized, and glossated has impressed even your reviewer who after 26 years in Pharaoh's Army through he'd heard it all. To think we once arched a collective eyebrow at Harry Truman when he said "son of a bitch."
This thing is funny as hell (until you cast thought upon the unfunny source for these caricatures), is out now on DVD, has entered a second season. Worth the watch so long as the premise of a foul-mouthed idiot of a Vice-President amuses you and do not intrude with any whisper of reality into our daily life as a Republic. Nah...  Alan Farrell

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

WOW!

[turcopolier]

All

Gary Oldman is a wonderful actor who has been under a reverse Mccarthyite ban for many years. That may have had a good dealto do with this film's lack of impact at the time it was produced.

Alan Farrell is retiring from his teaching post at VMI this year. He will still grace our space here from his mountaintop at Glasgow, Virginia, where he will be something like the man described as sitting there with a rifle across his knees in Walker Percy's "Lancelot." pl

[William R. Cumming]

THE CONTENDER not available to stream on NETFLIX!

Never saw the complete WEST WING so streamed the rest this last winter over several months. The illusion of control illustrated but not dealt with for the President and his minions in that effort. Still worth watching efforts to put out fires as opposed to long term thinking. Guessing no long term in politics except for incumbents with mucho lobbying money for their campaigns and no term limits.

[Charles I]

ahh Shelly Runyon, had forgotten him but waiting for his downfall I recall is what I waited for in the movie, Oldman positively oozes in the role. He has played more powerful underrated roles over the years, Batmans aside than you can shake a stick at, although often cast as generic malevolence d' jour, a la the ever watchable The Fifth Element.

He often calls to my mind Tim Roth, with whom he played in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Roth recently gave a nice understated turn as a put upon hitman in a little film call The Liability

[Charles I]

Hi Alan. I have watched the first half season of Veep per your earlier recco, upon which my anticipation built as I share your appreciation of the lovely and lively and talented Julia. Her phenotype is enough reality for any show.

It is a hoot. I hadn't heard that Season 2 was a go, a worthy prospect, and a must once you get a taste.

[rjj]

PL, what did Oldman do to get banned?

I like him a lot, too.

[turcopolier]

rjj

He is very conservative politically but this movie may have been the proximate cause. pl

[Fred]

Alan,

I will see if I can scrounge up a worthy token of esteem for your enjoyment on the mountaintop. I certainly owe something, especially after that fiasco that was John Carter.

[Maureen Lang]

Alan,
I had hoped you might some day review "The Contender." Perhaps you would consider also reviewing the other Joan Allen starrer you recommended to me, "The Upside of Anger." Or any Joan Allen, really- I'm a great admirer of her acting style.

Pat,
Re: Gary Oldman- I tend to agree with the boycott idea you put forth. Oldman very publicly took on the mighty Steven & Company at Dreamworks over their skewing of "The Contender"- that makes him downright heroic considering their ability to make or break "above the line" film personnel.

[William Fitzgerald]

Alan Farrell,

The Veeps now reside at the old Naval Observatory. I just watched (Netflix) "Death at a Funeral" and found it to be a very, very funny British comedy of the slapstick sort with a superb ensemble cast. "The Contender" is on order. I agree with your comments about Joan Allen. She's no Meg Ryan in the adorable category, but what an actress!

WPFIII

[Stephanie]

Oldman wasn’t blacklisted but the fuss probably cost him an Oscar nomination:

http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/making-of-a-myth

Actors sometimes miss the big picture focusing on their own roles, so it’s possible that happened here. In any case Oldman’s fantastic, disappearing so completely into the character that I initially didn’t recognize him.

Joan Allen used to get stuck in those uptight roles that Laura Linney gets now. It happens to actresses who aren’t glamorous or sexy enough and are too obviously intelligent. A typically thankless one for Allen was the wife in The Crucible, apologizing to Daniel Day-Lewis for driving him to adultery with the hired girl because she wasn’t hot enough.

The Tourette’s-like obscenities in Veep are apparently close to life. I did have a problem with the miscarriage subplot towards the end of the season, too serious an event to treat so offhandedly, but otherwise it’s a great show.

[Maureen Lang]

Thanks for including that Ebert link, Stephanie. Very interesting reading, also the cause of some grinning & chuckling around the den fireplace this evening. I was reading it when my husband asked to have a look next. I wondered if he'd pick up on the same couple of sentences I had. Didn't have to wait long: Husband (who, during three of the films he worked on at Amblin/Universal, had sat in many a production meeting with Spielberg) snorted, laughed, then ran his finger under "...Did [Rod] Lurie lose his nerve? "I sat in the editing room with Steven Spielberg," Lurie told me, "and he told me, 'Make the movie you believe in.'..."

[Stephanie]

You're welcome. Regardless of politics, it's never a bright idea for an actor to criticize his new picture in the press (cf. Katherine Heigl and "Knocked Up").

I was also amused, but more by Urbanski's characterization of "Network" as "subtle." Paddy Chayefsky had many fine qualities as a writer but he didn't know from subtle (and neither did the director, Sidney Lumet).

[Jim Ticehurst]

Alan...Always good to see other one of your great works of Poetic Art Movie Reviews here...I still have bits and pieces of many of your reviews,,Poems and Nam writings flashing back into my mind...leaving funny images ..of serious mtters...as only you can do...You have my deepest respect Sir...and I Thank you for the many Years of correspondence we have had,, and for the Two books of yours you mailed to me...I am glad that you have stayed Safe...Accomplished so much with your Life....and I Wish you all The Best...for Your well Deserved Retirement....Well Done..Sir