The Front Runner | Film Review

Hey Guys x

This film came out on the Sky Premiere channels recently, and while the description didn't really attract me that much, I was mainly watching in the hope that it would kind of turn into a political thriller or something. And then of course, Hugh Jackman.

In 1987, Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman) becomes the front runner for presidential nomination. However, when a scandal is brought to light, he finds that his exploits threaten to ruin both his campaign and his marriage.

I didn't hate this film, but I certainly didn't love it, for so many reasons.

At the beginning, it's quite interesting. You'd think there were no more unknown political stories to tell, but this was a story that I didn't know about, and a lot of people also might not know who Gary Hart was.

For a while, there's nothing new. If you've seen any politics-based movie, you've seen Hollywood's version of the campaign trail. This is no different in any way. The campaigning scenes could be interchanged with the ones from Vice (for example) and not really change the movie.

For me, the movie was more informative than entertaining. It kind of feels like you're watching a real-life documentary, and because of this, you don't really care that much about what's happening.

For the most part, it was boring. You know he doesn't become the president or presidential nominee (based on common knowledge), and after about 25 minutes of the film, you know why. So a lot of the movie felt a bit unnecessary.

It starts to pick up near the end when Hart can't keep hiding the truth, but it doesn't happen in enough time for you to really get invested.

It's very confusing in the sense that it's hard to know how the writer/director wants us as the audience to feel regarding Hart. Are we supposed to feel sympathetic? Hate him? While of course it isn't necessary at all for the film to try to force an opinion out of its audience, the film doesn't seem to know what light it's portraying him in.

And lastly, while the cast was amazing, including Jackman, Vera Farmiga as Oletha Hart, J. K. Simmons, Alfred Molina and Mamoudou Athie, they all felt really underused.

Overall, I'm not a huge fan of the film, and think that if we're going to have more political movies making the rounds, can they either be about people that the general public already cares about, or at least more interesting than a story about a man who's done the same thing that so many other men in politics do on a regular basis.

4/10

Lou