Well, it was bound to happen. Surely Hollywood was going to have its say during this year's election season. DreamWorks' entry into the fray is "The Contender," a rousing drama penned by writer-director Rod Lurie for actress Joan Allen. Flawed though his work may be, the muse that inspired it is at the top of her game.
Allen is Laine Hanson, a bull-headed Democratic Ohio senator nominated by President Jackson Evans (the wonderful Jeff Bridges) to fill the vacancy caused by his vice president's sudden death.
Her nomination triggers a furor after the president bypasses Virginia Gov. Jack Hathaway (William Petersen), who becomes a hero after trying to save a drowning woman. But Hathaway failed, and his association with the drowning gives Evans the excuse he needs to instead nominate Hanson, thereby securing both her legacy and his own.
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This slight leaves a sour taste in the mouth of Shelly Runyon, who chairs the congressional subcommittee conducting Hanson's nomination hearings. Runyon makes it his mission to single-handedly crucify Hanson as the nation watches. In one of Lurie's more absurd lines, one of Runyon's cohorts exclaims, "We have to gut the b---- in the belly."
It is this kind of dialogue and caricaturing that prevents "Contender," gripping as it is, from being completely believable. But Lurie seems not to not for realism. He delivers many of the scenes and transitions in a tongue-in-cheek manner, making his film more of an allegory. And just as Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" commented on the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s, Runyon's witch hunt in "Contender" makes a statement about the way we judge celebrities and politicians based on their personal lives (influenced, of course, by Monicagate).
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This witch hunt would not work without the Machiavellian Runyon (Gary Oldman), a man so calculating and parasitic that he makes Richard of "Survivor" look like a weenie. Runyon launches a smear campaign when he discovers photos, taken over two decades earlier, suggesting that Hanson, a governor's daughter, engaged in scandalous sexual behavior.
Oldman (who was also executive producer, which might explain why he has top billing over Allen) is at his sleazy best. Several times during "Contender" we see him devouring meat like he's some sort of carnivore. Of course, in one of Lurie's more two-dimensional character choices, Hanson herself is a vegetarian, making the difference between Hanson and Runyon as clear as night and day, or more to the point, good and evil.
This polarity initially is off-putting, simplifying the nomination hearings into a liberal-good, conservative-bad notion. But, ultimately, this becomes Lurie's stance. He is not wishy-washy. He calls for universal respect of the sphere of privacy.
With Allen on board, Lurie finds the perfect messenger. An actress who can do no wrong, Allen is finally able to exhibit a more sensual side than she displayed in her repressed housewife roles in "Nixon," "The Ice Storm" and "Pleasantville." She transcends Lurie's material and leaves no trace of cardboard in Hanson. As a result, the senator is a highly principled yet deeply sexual woman, a stoic woman but never a martyr. In other words, she's very real - and trapped in a world full of phonies.
One of those phonies is President Evans, and Bridges is smooth as silk as the commander-in-chief with a voracious appetite. He's always calling for food or ordering others to eat (yes, Lurie uses an abundance of food imagery here), but he always does this to show who is boss.
Sam Elliott and Saul Rubinek are perfect additions to the ensemble as Evans' top aides. Only Christian Slater disappoints in a mechanical performance as a righteous young representative.
Flawed but feisty, "Contender" arrives with both barrels blazing, and despite its flaws, it sticks to its guns. It certainly won my vote.
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