Reagan

We saw it last year with Ridley Scott's 'Napoleon': small snippets of his life, like a greatest hits album with 10 vastly different songs and no coherent structure that easily transports us from A to B.

Sadly the same thing is going on here with *Reagan'. Too much need to be told and shown from 1928 when he was a boy to 1989.

'Reagan' does settle down a bit when Gorbachev enters the picture near the end, but then it's too late to save this movie from being somewhat of a disappointment.

'Reagan' could have been a lot better if half of the movie wasn't spent on showing us him growing up as a boy, becoming a B-movie star, becoming a governor, trying to become president etc, and instead just began with him winning the presidency, because all the real drama takes place there, in the 80's, with him and Gorbachev ending the cold war and becoming friends (the movie sadly skipped many historic moments, like Gorbachev's famous visit to Washington DC, the famous signing of the INF treaty in 1987, the ramifications of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in '86 etc.)

The point is: when making a biopic about a famous person, it's better to focus on a part of this person's life, rather than just showing us 1-2 minute scenes taken from several decades, if you want people invested in the story. Or make it a series.

As a history movie and biopic nerd, I've been following the development of it for most of the last decade. Given its long development, not to mention some of its supporting cast choices (including politically conservative actors Jon Voight, Robert Davi, and Kevin Sorbo) and the fact it's been sitting on a shelf since it was filmed in 2020-21, I wondered what the final product would be.

I'll be honest: I've got very mixed feelings about the thing I spent two and a bit hours watching.

Quaid was fantastic, as I expected. A little airbrushed/over made-up looking in some of the younger scenes but damn good all the same. His reading of Reagan's 1994 Farewell Letter was remarkable. And, as predicted when the trailer dropped earlier this summer, Quaid didn't share a single scene with any of the aforementioned outspoken actors. A part of me suspects they have been brought in to get a bit more money without causing too much fuss.

And it's a film that clearly needed money if the production values are anything to go by. They're a couple of steps up from a Lifetime or cable tv movie. They tried but the budget wasn't quite there and you can tell it in the production values and the odd CGI shot that looked cheap. One area where the film had value put was in its score which was good, though overbearing in places due to the sound mix, with a highlight being the main title Cold War crash course (though The Man from UNCLE film in 2015 did the concept better).

Then there's the script. It tried to cram his whole life into two hours and it's deeply unfocused as a result. There's some stuff in it that's misrepresentation (such as the 1983 war scare) or just made up (including a sequence that shows the "Tear Down this Wall" speech covered live worldwide, a speech that was boosted to its current status mythic status well after Reagan left office). Like the production values, it's a couple of steps up from Lifetime or a Christian DVD movie (which it becomes in a few places rather jarringly) but it's got its moments. There's almost no nuance or sense of Reagan beyond politics or Nancy (their children barely appear), with AIDS covered in a brief montage and Iran-Contra dealt with in about eight minutes with no real look at what Reagan did or did not do. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer this was not, with neither screenwriter Howard Klausner or director Sean McNamara capable of doing anything but highlight the positives.

Reagan the movie is a mixed bag, to put it mildly. Worth the wait of a decade? Probably not. Is there still a better film to be made about Reagan?

No doubt.

The user reviews for this movie tend to reflect the political leanings of the viewers. Having said that, as a Reagan fan who began my adult life as he came to office, this movie leaves much to be desired. The writing (including stilted dialog), cinematography, and production values are substandard. Same with the acting, though Dennis Quaid did an admirable job of portraying the president. Aside from that, the audience would be much better served if the biopic had not been so ambitious. A life as interesting and impactful as Reagan's suffers from a cradle-to-grave treatment. It would be much better if only a slice of his life had been told, such as was the case with the excellent Steven Spielberg film "Lincoln." At most, the tale could have been limited to his presidency, or an examination of one part of his administration, such as his negotiations with Gorbachev that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

When there is so much to tell about the life of a person like Ronald Reagan, the choice for using motion graphics plus live action footage to give the audience these important pieces of narrative information in bite size bits was very strategic and well executed.

Dennis Quaid is fantastic, the man can carry a film like a pro. John Voight is the second heart of this film. He plays a character that I would say is a rival to Quaid's Reagan, but not necessarily an antagonist.

Now for the con, there is only one. The prosthetics for the actors to make them younger in the flash backs is noticeable, but not the worst thing ever.

I grew up in the Reagan era; I was 10 when he took office in 1981, and clearly remember his assassination attempt, "Reaganomics", his "Star Wars" defense system, his affinity for jellybeans, the Iran-Contra scandal, and his wife Nancy's "War On Drugs" ("Just Say No"). Although I don't feel an affinity for either Republicans or Democrats, I'd say I lean towards the left on the political spectrum, not necessarily aligned with Reagan's conservative views. With that being said, I highly enjoyed his biopic film, leaving the theater with a new respect for our 40th President, especially his disdain for, and his fight against Communism trying to gain a foothold in the United States: not simply during his Presidency, but also 4 decades prior to him taking office, as well as his major role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, without firing a single shot. His story, told from the perspective of a former top Russian KGB agent, was unique and intriguing. The low rating of this film is confusing; I'd highly recommend it to anyone who lived through the Reagan years, or any history afficionado. I rate it 8/10.