Ides of March: Review

By Spence Blazak

Disclaimer: This is a modification of my review for The Daily Targum coming out on October 13^th. It is like the one in there, except in this one I added in a few swear words and the word leopard. Enjoy!

Phillip Seymour Hoffman looks more and more like my Pop with each passing role. His one sentence review of the movie was "P.S.H. played a great D. Blazak!" I digress. Ides of March just might have the best cast of any movie in recent memory, and this is why it hurts a little more that it doesn’t live up to its talent factor. Its good, but it just isn’t as good as it could have been. If you hear that your brunch is going to be cooked by Bobby Flay, Cat Cora, Ina Garten, and Mario Batali (…….no….no….. I never watch Food Network…..), then you just receive Nutella-covered garlic crackers, it is disappointing regardless of Nutella’s hazelnutty goodness*.

Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney) is campaigning for the Democratic Party’s Presidential bid. The climactic battle has come down to Ohio. Our main character is Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling), the charming, second in command on the Morris campaign who has the power to make every female intern within a 2-mile radius take her top off and purr like a snow leopard whenever he pouts his marble chiseled lips.

Stephen is a valuable piece in the game of the Primary for both sides. The only way Paul (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), the head manager of Morris campaign, could be trying to hold onto him any harder is if he was SITTING ON HIM!(count it!). Meanwhile the rival campaign manager (Paul Giamatti), is trying to use Jedi mind tricks to win the beautiful Stephen over to his side.

Cover ups ensue, politics corrupt the incorruptible, illegitimate children abound, and dark glances are shot at enemies and friends alike. Ides of March’s greatest triumph lies in the performances of its cast. Presidential candidates pitch the same platforms every four years, but for some reason, people keep coming back and getting enchanted all over again. Clooney recognizes this and plays such a good candidate that the audience is practically handing him a blank check for a campaign contribution after the first debate.

Hoffman and Giamatti are, in my opinion, the two best actors in Hollywood today, and they lose themselves in their performances, making you wish they had even more screen time. Hoffman gives a one-two punch to the world of cinema that began with his tough-as-nails performance in Moneyball from two weeks ago, while Giamatti finishes off possibly the best year of his career that included two perfect performances in Win Win and Barney’s Version as well as one of the funniest things on recent television when he guest starred in an episode of 30 Rock as a pony tailed-footage editor who “went to hockey camp and became a Confederate Civil War re-enactor to meet women.” Marissa Tomei also appears as a New York Times reporter who brilliantly captures the d-bag, two toned personality you need to get a real story.

As for Gosling, he has begun to shape a career that is looking very similar to Leonardo DiCaprio’s. Ever since The Notebook, Gosling has slowly been building up more credibility for his actual acting chops rather than just his good looks. DiCaprio almost quit acting after Titanic, but then he earned respectability with performances like Howard Hughes in The Aviator and Billy Costigan in The Departed. Along with Drive and Crazy Stupid Love, Gosling has also had an excellent year featuring three well crafted performances, and his work here makes me very curious as to what else he has up his sleeve aside from his godly canon of an arm. Wookiee Wednesday contributor Brian dared me to write that. Pay up, buddy.

The movie is also the latest entry into the “Clooney-noir” genre, where George Clooney puts his hand into every aspect of the movie. While it is respectable to love ones work that much, the directing comes off as a little bit “blah” and the script’s wittiness just winds up falling flat a lot of the time. Brian put it best by saying “he is like a kid in school who sucks at drawing, but no one can tell him because he is the President’s son.” Even in his “masterpiece” Good Night and Good Luck the shot composition is its major flaw, but it is well covered by how cool cigarette smoke looks in black and white.

All in all, Ides of March is good, but it is just missing….something. The underlying theme appears to be not much more than how politics can change a person seemingly made of unbendable metal, as well as the horrible price of getting ahead in the world. Think of it as a Thanksgiving turkey. It looks great, but the stuffing is made out of a balled up copy of The Trentonian.

If All The President’s Men is a 4 star political movie, and Swing Vote is a 1 star example, Ides has the scale just barely tip in its favor to come in at 3 stars.

*this might be very presumptuous of me that it would have “hazelnutty goodness” because I’m allergic to hazelnuts and have never had them for fear of a VERY sore throat.