Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story

The film is obvious a Hollywood capitalization on a persona. It is definitely overdramatized, but it does play out some of the more important moments in Giuliani's career. Consequently, if one has an even minute understanding of his political career, the film allows a person to reflect on it a bit more easily. This film is not a political analysis of any sort, nor is there a real vestige character portrayal. It's much more a docudrama than anything else, and that is to be expected from a "movie of the week."

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

It would have to have been Ray Liotta in the title role.He's probably the only other actor who could stand a chance of matching the nigh on terrifying manic intensity with which he plays Giuliani.This aside,this biopic,charting Giuliani's rise and fall to triumphant rise again as mayor of New York,from his initiation in 1994 to his prostate cancer scare in 2000,to his leadership during the dark days of and the aftermath of the notorious twin towers attack in 2001,is dogged by other problems.It's TV movie all the way,with see through production values and what's almost certainly borrowed real life footage,and it's ultimately told in too much of a downbeat and depressing way to be truly endearing.But it's not completely unwatchable.**

It's too bad the talented Penelope Ann Miller was cast in this garbage! Her talent and acting ability should be used for much better roles than this. As usual, Penelope is always outstanding, no matter what she is in but this role was sickening. Hope to see her in better stuff than this in the future.

Taking the events of September 11th as it's foundation, the film tells the tale of Rudy Giuliani's rise up the political ladder, his hard-line stance as Attorney and Mayor of New York. It also shows his affairs and the breakdown of his marriage despite the strength of the man in times of testing.

As will now be an annual event, the television companies all rolled out films and documentaries on the 2nd anniversary of 9/11. The main commercial station's choice was this sort of bio-pic of Rudy Giuliani with the focus on September 11th widening to take in the 15 or so years prior to that moment. The manner of structuring the film in this way means that it could have been a flag waving salute to a man who become world famous (or more famous!) on that day. However, despite cutting back and forth, the majority of the film occurs before the attack. I found the attack scenes hard to watch as I was watching a film for entertainment – I suppose this was unavoidable, but I don't like seeing the pictures too often in case they stop shocking me and I get used to them.

The back story to Giuliani is interesting as I admired his stance on crime when he was Mayor. I didn't know a lot of detail of his career as I'm not in the US but the film delivered a simplified version to good effect. Surprisingly the film didn't gloss it's subject too often and wasn't afraid to show his affairs, his tempers of his right wing views. This made it feel more worthwhile although the TV production values do make it feel a little tacky at times.

Woods does pretty well to hold the screen for the whole film and not spin Rudy o be too sleazy or too heroic. I felt that he was a little animated for Rudy at times, as I always had the impression of him publicly as more controlled. The support cast (including Penelope Ann Miller) are all pretty good but do tend to seem more at home in TV land than Woods does.

Overall this was an interesting film, even if it is very much a snapshot and is driven by Woods rather than the wider story. The framing of the story by 9/11 works well to set up the story, despite the strange feeling of seeing the real footage inserted into a movie in this way.

A superficial puff-piece about a fascinating political character that stays so much on the surface that it verges on soft-core propaganda. Neither James Woods nor the script really bears a particularly close resemblance to Guiliani, both making him look better than he really was.

One example that can symbolize many others: Guiliani is shown as a devoted Yankee fan, but there is no mention of his various overt and covert efforts to funnel millions of public dollars to George Steinbrenner and his baseball team.

The director's and writer's point of view is not only essentially pro-Guiliani, but the narrative framework is also centered within his political cadre, rather than being informed by the insights of detached and balanced observers.

I would have liked to have seen more about where Rudy came from -- geographically, socially, and psychologically -- to help understand how he became such a capable yet massively flawed figure on the New York political stage. This movie trivializes its subject matter, focussing on a two-dimensional cutout rather than a three-dimensional character within a complex context.