Film Review: Reagan

Reagan
Director: Sean McNamara
MJM Entertainment and Rawhide Pictures
In Theaters 08.30

When telling the story of a historical figure on screen, there’s a fine line between being respect and hero worship, and even some great filmmakers have had moments where they crossed that line. Reagan is not a movie made by great filmmakers, and it doesn’t so much cross the line as gleefully pole vault over it.

The life and career of America’s 40th President is framed by a clandestine meeting between a young Russian communist politician, Andrei Novikov (Alex Sparrow), “the Rising Star of Mother Russia”, and a venerable old spy named Viktor Ivanov (Jon Voight, Midnight Cowboy, National Treasure), who is meant to advise Novikov on how the Soviet Union fell from its place as a superpower state. Ivanov explains that his job for the KGB was to monitor the progress of Soviet efforts to plant the seeds for a takeover of America by infiltrating Hollywood, but there was one thing they didn’t count on: an actor and “Crusader” by the name of Ronald Reagan (Dennis Quaid, The Rookie). As a boy, young Ronnie (Tommy Ragen, Mighty Oak)  learns to be a persuasive public speaker by reciting Bible verses in church, and is taught by his mother to stand up to bullies. These life lessons serve him well later in life. While Reagan’s  marriage to actress Jane Wyman (Mena Suvari, American Beauty) ends when she becomes frustrated that her husband seems more interested in making speeches and informing to the FBI than in stardom or winning an Oscar, he gets a second chance at love, and sweeps Nancy Davis (Penelope Ann Miller, The Freshman, Carlito’s Way) off her feet. When Reagan becomes a Republican, the powers that be in the party see a star in the making and talk him into running for office. After achieving success as the Governor of California, Reagan eventually makes his way to the White House, despite the best efforts of Ivanov and his boss, Soviet leader Leonid Breshnev (Robert Davi, Die Hard). As Reagan serves two terms in the White House, surviving an assassination attempt and the threat of impeachment for the Iran-Contra scandal, the struggle to rid the world of the Soviet scourge is never far from his mind. 

Director Sean McNamara (The King’s Daughter) and screenwriter Howard Klausner (Space Cowboys), working from Paul Kengor’s book Crusader: Ronald Reagan and The Fall of Communism, approach the material with all the subtly and nuance of a napalm enema. The cartoonish framing device with Ivanov and Novikov is insufferably silly, as Ivanov’s recounting of Reagan foiling him at every turn plays like a low level criminal reporting to Lex Luthor on his less than successful attempts to vanquish Superman. Ivanov has been described as a “composite” character, which allows Klausner to write him as an insider who was right there watching anything they want to say that he was, including lurking in the shadows of outside Reagan’s home to witness a pivotal moment with “A pop star, a preacher and a prophecy.” Ivanov tells of watching Ronnie and Nancy meeting with with clean cut singer Pat Boone (Chris Massoglia, The Protectors) and spiritual scion Reverend George Otis (played by the real Pat Boone) as Otis seemingly quotes God as declaring “If you continue to walk uprightly before me, you will dwell at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” Ivanov’s mix of fear and reverence for Reagan is such that he refers to him only as “The Crusader”. Aside from the Ivanov framing, the film is largely a highlights reel that ticks off all of the major events of the Reagan era in as cursory a manor as possible, zipping through Iran-Contra quickly enough to portray the President’s involvement as in the illegal trading of arms for hostages in vague enough terms absolve him of responsibility while patting him on the back for it at the same time. All of this is back by a bombastic musical score by John Coda (Cats and Dogs 3: Paws Unite) that brings far too much pomp to each misrepresented circumstance.

While Quaid’s performance never really gets beneath the surface and relies a bit too much a self conscious impression centered around using the word “well” as often as possible and keeping a straight face while sputing dialogue like “All I wanted was to be the guy who finally got to say ‘nyet’ to the Soviets,” he has more movie star charisma than Reagan himself ever did on the big screen. It’s a good thing, too, because while Reagan got to act opposite a chimp, Quaid is stuck sharing the screen with Voight, who was cast to play the older version of Ivanov, yet also portrays the character in as a young man under heavy make-up, capturing what Melissa McCarthy might look like playing Leonardo DiCaprio on Saturday Night Live. In fact, the digital de-aging effects used on both Quaid and Voight look like someone used a belt sander on their faces. Voight’s “This will fix Moose and Squirrel” accent is unintentionally hilarious, and while others chew the scenery, no one else can compete with Voight’s absurd theatrics.

Reagan is a shamelessly one sided cinematic shrine to the patron saint of capitalism, made for zealous right wing audiences by right wing interests who envision their audiences flocking to it like true believers to a religious ceremony, and  shouldn’t’ be taken seriously as history or as a drama. There’s a compelling film to be made about the Reagan era, but this is not it. –Patrick Gibbs

Read more film reviews:
Film Review: You Gotta Believe
Film Review: Cuckoo