The Apprentice (15)
Runtime: 2h2m
Director: Ali Abbasi
Cast: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick
Synopsis: A dive into the underbelly of the American empire, THE APPRENTICE charts a young Donald Trump’s ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn.
URL: https://youtu.be/0tXEN0WNJUg?si=bBcmdDwipYwDT5zw
Director Ali Abbasi [Holy Spider (2022)] brings this timely, well-paced and entertaining story of how a young Donald Trump [Sebastian Stan- A Different Man (2024; Captain America
( 2011,2014, 2016,2018, 2019 )], eager to make his name as a hungry second son of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn [Jeremy Strong (Succession 2018-2023), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020),
While no way a flattering version the younger Donald Trump (a very convincing Sebastian Stan) the film follows Trump’s early journey, starting as “Little Donnie”, the intimidated second son of an overbearing father who thinks that his son “needs all the help he can get”.
But the young Donald finds a mentor in the well-connected and widely feared right-wing lawyer Roy Cohn (Succession star Jeremy Strong, bringing his trademark intensity with a chilling, mesmerising performance). Trump learns the lessons from Cohn – deception, aggression and the necessity to win at all costs –from which today’s Trump evolved.
This highly anticipated docudrama on Donald Trump’s early life premiered at the 77th Cannes film festival in May to a standing ovation from the audience, mixed reviews from critics, and an unsuccessful cease-and-desist letter to the producers from the former US president’s campaign.
The action opens in New York of the 1970s. The young Donald is a hungry and ambitious small player on a big stage. He plans to take over a derelict hotel in the blighted no man’s land of Manhattan’s Midtown. But his father, Fred Trump (Martin Donovan), is dismissive of his son’s vision, preferring to employ Donald’s talents as a glorified rent collector for his down-at-heel Trump Village housing complex in Coney Island.
Because of his father’s name, Donald is not bothered by the edginess of his city envisioning a significant profitable future and He lionises the rich and famous at a Manhattan mmbers’ club (“They say I’m the youngest person ever admitted,” he brags to a bored blond woman) and hoping to soak up their influence by osmosis. he catches the cold, shark-eyed gaze of Cohn, who invites him into an inner circle populated by the dodgy smirking big shot types, political power brokers and Rupert Murdoch.
Cohn untangles the Trump Organization’s knotty legal problems in his particular way and sets about moulding young Donald into a winner. He rattles off his three rules for success. No 1: attack, attack, attack. No 2: admit nothing, deny everything. No 3: always claim victory, never admit defeat. Donald adopts and swallows Cohn’s wisdom whole and turns it into his character. Inevitably, the protege usurps the mentor and a force is unleashed.
Maria Bakalova is excellent as Ivana Trump who has no self identity problemsIvana is an aspiring businesswoman with city-sized ambitions.
The most interesting character is Strong’s tricky portrayal of Cohn – a man full of sharp edges and wide, internal contradictions. He was a closeted homosexual who, when he worked alongside Senator Joseph McCarthy, tirelessly persecuted the gay population. He’s depicted as someone who gets misty-eyed with pent-up emotion when he talks about his love for the US, but who despises huge sections of the American population and disdain for the legal system And, the film argues, Cohn’s pernicious, far-reaching influence on the country he professed to serve is all too evident today, nearly 40 years after his death from AIDS, disgraced and disbarred.
Jeremy Strong compellingly embodies all Cohn’s internal contradictions and is certainly the Trump card in The Apprentice in my opinion
Images courtesy of Canal
