Bombshell - Das Ende des Schweigens

Excellent acting and makeup transformed actors to real life people they portrayed. Interesting take on the fox news scandal. Mix of movie made news with real news was awesome.

Quite a complex story which highlights the difficulty of a class-action lawsuit. The need to get others to go public before she did was Megyn Kelly's Achilles heel - she didn't have the guts to go first. Gretchen Carlson was the real hero and Roger Ailes endless and bullish denial was typical.

The financial settlement for him exceeded the victims which is the true bombshell here.

It takes courage to place this true story before the public at this time of the political climate during debates by presidential candidates and retorts from the sitting president who is famous for his association with Fox News. Charles Randolph (The Big Short, and The Life of David Gale) has written a penetrating screenplay about the 2016 explosion when Fox News persona Roger Ailes was finally exposed for sexual harassment by some courageous women. Director Jay Roach (Trumbo, Blown Away, Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery, etc) makes this story come vividly to life, unafraid to insert film clips of Donald Trump's appearances as the case unfolds, as well as including the lesbian relationships that give the story a new grounding.

The story of this Fox News scandal is true, so everyone knows the outline. As one distillation states, 'When Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) slaps Fox News founder Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) with a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment, not a soul could predict what would happen next. Her decision leads to Fox News correspondent Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) coming forward with her own story, as well as multiple other women, such as Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie), inciting a movement that reverberates around the world.'

The cast is outstanding: Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie each excel, but the other women in the film - Allison Janney, Connie Britton, Liv Hewson, Kate McKinnon, and Brigette Lundy-Paine - also impress. John Lithgow is very appropriately repugnant as Roger Ailes, as is Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Murdoch, and the clips of Giuliani, Trump et al. The tension never lets up as this scandal is related in fine form. Not only is the film excellent (though some may prefer the Showtime series THE LOUDEST VOICE account of the scandal), but also it offers award winning quality performances that allow the actors to step into different territories.

I really don't know how I feel about this film. The story itself was absolutely scandalous and I am very glad that there was a movie made about it as it's crazy how stuff like that can happen and people get away with it scot free. But as much as I like the story a lot of the movie felt kind of weak.

Like for a story about empowering woman it's extremely clear it's not made by a woman. A lot of the dialogue is poorly written and makes no sense. That being said the performances were quite good and the actresses did really well with how poor they got. It was good but it could have been much better. 6/10.

Despite a couple of Oscar nominations for acting, "Bombshell" was greeted pretty indifferently by audiences and critics alike when it came out last year. Perhaps it was due to my low expectations, then, but I was surprised by how much I liked this movie. It's slick and glib and fairly superficial, but it's extremely watchable and very entertaining, and the acting is indeed exceptional. Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie were singled out for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress nominations, respectively. But I was as impressed with Nicole Kidman and John Lithgow.

In this tale of women coming out against sexual harassment, "Bombshell" conveniently sidesteps the fact that these particular women were contributing to an atmosphere of male toxicity by peddling Fox News' message in the first place. But to address that would have been to make the entire screenplay more complex, and it would have interfered with the filmmakers' wish to portray these women as unequivocal heroes of the MeToo Movement.

The makeup crew for this film worked over time to transform attractive Hollywood actors and actresses into already attractive people like Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson, and not so attractive people like Roger Ailes and a spot-on Bill O'Reilly, and won an Oscar for their efforts.

Grade: B+