Knife Fight

Hollywood has seen several political spin doctor satires in the past decade. A notable one being Barry Levinson's Wag The Dog starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman. Knife Fight is set during the preliminary elections where Paul Turner (Lowe) has his hands full backing two major players - Larry Becker (McCormack) and Stephen Green (Harbour). These two are your standard issue senators: purists onscreen, pigs off-screen. And then, there's the saintly character (Carrie-Anne Moss) who in contrast is presented as a genuinely good person wanting to genuinely serve the society through the tainted prism of politics.

What I enjoyed and hated about Knife Fight was its mostly predictable and mostly comforting script. It doesn't take itself too seriously by blandly harbouring over the complex matter of ethics versus personality. Knife Fight manages to remain light-hearted and while that doesn't make it a worthy film, it's not a bad way of spending 90 minutes. If you like Rob Lowe - and desire a Sam Seaborn-Toby Ziegler reunion - this is it!

The audience gets is a casserole of movie elements and little of the satisfaction that comes from watching these types of movies. It's one of those films for which I could guess the plot exactly before I saw it. You can predict the whole movie and ending easily. Worse, these characters were walking cardboards. Overall, the film was..."eh". I was bored through most of it and I left the living room with no intentions to ever see it again. From an artistic standpoint, there were some plot elements and character developments I didn't think were totally needed. They do however drive the story, which seemed to be their purpose, so I can accept them.

Brilliant! An awesome political movie; if you didn't like Rob Lowe before this, you will! This isn't a political drama where the stage is set on the candidate being in your face; the main focus. You won't see all the bells and whistles, big budget fight & gun scenes, and worn action dialog. Rather, this is a political drama built around dialog and characters. The main characters aren't the machine; moreover, the main characters are the cogs that run the machines. The reason comparisons to Primary Colors or Game Change doesn't work is because only thing in common/related is the political storyline. After watching there is a slight bias; however, Worth a DEFINITE watch!

Some years ago I had a ood Assemblymember representing me in Albany. At least he epresented my point of view aboit 95% of the time. He got caught up in a sex scandal and managed to survive it for two more election cycles.

Watching Knife Fight I thought of him immdiately and it occured to me we lose a lot of good people who get caught up in these things. A lot of good people also never go into public service because they don't want their lives under a microscope. How many of us could withstand the scrutiny?

Rob Lowe and Richard Schiff veterans of West Wing star n tis political drama about a pair of political operators. Lowe has some idealim, but does what he has to for his candidates. Schiff prefers the low road in any event.

The film is scene through the eyes of their new employee Jamie Chung and by the end of the film she has learned her lessons well.

Their three candidates rnning for statewde office Lowe's firm is managing and all have crises of a sort. Eric McCormack the governor of Kentucky who is a Bill Clinton like figure whose libido may get the best of him. David Harbour a Senator from Massachusetts who made one indiscretion that could cost hi his career. Finally my favorite from nife Fight, Carrie Anne Moss an idealistic doctor who runs a medical clinic who wants to be governor of California and for all the right reasons.

Moss is my favorite from the film, but it is a well cast and directed piece ofwork. And one of te most realisti political films out there.

Rob Lowe gained experience delivering political babble in The West Wing, and in this idealized satire about the workings and techniques of political strategists, he puts that experience to good use, delivering his quick-witted lines in typical Aaron Sorkin-ish tempo and tone. The film delivers a few jabs at the American political system, especially campaign advertising, but when push comes to shove writer/director Bill Guttentag is a little too much in love with his characters and their flaunting talent for the film to have enough edge and make a lasting impression. And while the narrative structure is semi-fresh and the agenda well-meaning enough, there's really not much progress or development to incur during the course of these ninety plus minutes. This may well be the filmmakers making a point by paralleling politics, but if so, it's as slight a point as there ever was.