Até o Fim

Bryan Cranston brings Lyndon Johnson to life in this absorbing real life drama focusing on 1964 when LBJ not only got a major civil rights bill passed, but set the stage for the 1965 voting rights act and the war on poverty. Cranston's portrayal is uncanny, and turns this made for HBO movie into a quasi-documentary. Cranston carries this movie and makes it one of the best television events of the year. The rest of the cast is excellent too but in some cases, the actors don't look enough like the characters they are playing: Hubert Humphery and Martin Luther King Jr., come to mind. The storyline is fairly well known to anyone who follows politics and U.S. history, but the behind the scene's maneuvering to get a very major bill passed makes for great story telling and LBJ was one of the great story tellers. The stories told by LBJ are the glue that holds this movie together. His poor upbringing gave him the resolve to do something about helping the poor once he got into office. And of course he saw first hand in his home state of Texas, the massive racism that prevented blacks from taking their rightful place in American society. No doubt LBJ could have been a candidate for Mt. Rushmore were it not for Vietnam which is explored in the movie but not in-depth. That should be a sequel. Melissa Leo is wonderful as Lady Bird Johnson, and Frank Langella is excellent as Senator Richard Russell. This is a must see movie. Cranston will be picking up more awards.

all seems be a splendid embroidery. the atmosphere, LBJ proposed by Bryan Cranston, Melissa Leo as lady Bird Johnson, Frank Langella in the generous role of senator Russell, Anthony Mackie in the skin, far to be comfortable, of dr. Martin Luther King. the events are known but that is the virtue of film - to recreate the roots of essential decisions, to show debates and errors, to give the map of a struggle who change America. a film who becomes documentary in many scenes. and one of the most inspired portraits of an U.S. president. a film who presents the way of an year. and a man across a storm. and that does All the way more than a good work. but an useful support for reflection. about politics and about courage. about contemporary elections and about isles from old manner to understand the things. and, sure, about the admirable performance of Bryan Cranston.

All the Way

An impressive cast, centered around the LBJ actor Bryan Cranston, keeps the historical facts alive and relevant.

We often forget Johnson the president between Kennedy and Nixon. He was the most responsible for Vietnam, but also for a huge range of social programs that really make him the ultimate big government guy since Roosevelt. But important programs like Medicare and social legislation like the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Act. Seeing him struggle to make it happen is a kind of poker game, and he does it with famously Johnson candor and humor.

There's no getting around the fact that these are facts. There are no dramatic surprises here (so it's like seeing a movie the second time). But it's a good movie—one that you can see a second time and get a lot from it. There are weak points (some miscast figures like, unfortunately, Martin Luther King Jr. who is played by Anthony Mackie), but overall the drama of the events is kept intense and pertinent.

And Cranston is sublime. If you know him from "Breaking Bad" you will surprised by his depth here. See him, at least. And Johnson, too.

While Lyndon Johnson's presidency was marred by his disastrous Vietnam policy, he was one of our most significant and important presidents in terms of social justice, passing laws that fought racism and pushed against poverty.

In All the Way's eagerness to show the good of Johnson, it sometimes pushes a little too far. Johnson is portrayed here as a sort of crude angel. Sure, he holds meetings from the toilet, but he single-handedly pushes through a civil rights bill!

I don't know much about the history of the civil rights bill, but I do know that politics is a vast, messy business that involves a lot of people and that even the noblest of politicians are still consumed with deal making and positioning and power. For me, this makes the LBJ portrayed in the movie a too simplistic. I am more interested with flawed humans whose angels sometimes beat down their demons to earthly saints.

In spite of my objections, though, this is a very entertaining, involving movie. Its main selling point is Bryan Cranston's amazing portrayal of LBJ. Cranston's LBJ is shrewd, calculating, noble, and briefly angsty. Cranston creates as much complexity as is possible within a role written with a lack of nuance.

The other performances are also quite solid, particularly Melissa Leo as the sweet but steel-spined Ladybird and Frank Langella as LBJ's mentor and occasional foe. Anthony Mackie plays a thoughtful MLK, but there is a slightness, both physical and oratorical, that is disappointing.

While I would have liked more complexity, this is a very entertaining movie that is well worth watching.

This portrayal of the 1963/1964 Johnson presidency is not only excellent but BRILLIANT. The acting was flawless about an era I knew well. The acting was so good I forgot about who was portraying whom. Bryan Cranston cannot be lauded enough.

Our nation is on the precipice of returning to those noxious racist-filled days as we are poised to elect a wingnut demagogue to office supported by many racist whites even of the KKK and white nationalist supremacist variety. Have we learned NOTHING from our tragic racist past? Is Vietnam but a memory and the race relations of Jim Crow tucked away neatly in the crevices of our national mind? I surely hope not but suspect they are.

Each and every American would do well to see this film and relive the 1964 shame-filled era of our nation and the legacy of its Civil War. Ultimately the war, though Union won, is still being fought and not only in the battlefield of the south but in the fields of the entire nation.