The movie stars Dennis Quaid as 40th U.S. President Ronald Reagan – who, on a personal note, was the first president elected after I started being interested in presidential history and current events, when I was in second grade. Quaid plays a progressively aged Ronnie, a.k.a. Dutch (only once in the movie does someone call him "the Gipper," and he gets a weird look from others in the scene), looking and sometimes sounding like a victim of facial paralysis thanks, I hope, to an excess of makeup, despite which he only faintly resembles the late president. Nevertheless, he does a good job bringing to life the tenderness between Ronnie and Nancy, played by Penelope Ann Miller. His portrayal, in scenes from later in Reagan's life, also hints poignantly at his progressive loss of mental sharpness, making his last horseback ride an emotionally touching place to end the movie (not counting closing credits photos and video clips from the real Reagan's life and funeral). Quaid also nails the firm character, eloquent oratory and communism-fighting commitment of the president who told Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" (in Berlin) and called the Soviet Union an "evil empire."
The movie moves through a lot of material at a brisk pace. It selects, compresses and tightly arranges the events and themes of Reagan's life and career around a unified purpose – to present Reagan as the American leader who took down the Soviet Union. Using a framing narrative technique, it dramatizes this – unexpectedly? ironically? – as an elderly Soviet spy's memoir of the tragedy of the USSR's downfall, told with mingled regret and admiration to a younger spy. Scenes from early in Reagan's life lend an element of destiny, or perhaps of divine mission, to Reagan's career. If you missed the fact, revealed in the opening titles, that the movie is adapted from a book called The Crusader, you won't fail to notice that Reagan's characterization as a crusader is an important theme throughout the film.
The movie has superb production values. It balances things, a bit, by incorporating almost the entire music video to Genesis' "Land of Confusion," acknowledging Reagan's villainous reputation in popular culture. But overall it presents the sometime actor turned politician as a man who showed bold leadership, courage and firmness of mind during a very dangerous time in our world's recent history, and through his rapport with Gorbachev, reduced the danger of worldwide nuclear annihilation.
The cast is big and big-time. Kevin Sorbo plays Reagan's boyhood pastor. Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years) is House Speaker Tip O'Neill. Kevin Dillon (Entourage) appears as studio head Jack Warner. Mena Suvari (American Beauty, American Pie) plays Reagan's first wife, Jane Wyman. Jon Voight plays the older Russian spy who more or less narrates the movie, sharing scenes with Alex Sparrow, a.k.a. Alexey Vorobyov, a sometime Eurovision singer known for appearances in Unreal and Space Force. Lesley-Anne Down (North and South) plays Margaret Thatcher. Robert Davi, whom I remember as the older and uglier FBI Agent Johnson in Die Hard, plays Brezhnev. Elya Baskin, a character actor you'd immediately recognize if you saw him, plays a Russian defector whose presentation at Reagan's boyhood church alters the course of his life. You see Nick Searcy (Justified), C. Thomas Howell (Soul Man), Trevor Donovan (every fifth Hallmark movie), Xander Berkeley (24), Amanda Righetti (The Mentalist), Justin Chatwin (Tom Cruise's son in War of the Worlds) and Mark Moses (Mad Men) as various Reagan staffers and family members, Olek Krupa (Behind Enemy Lines) as Gorby, David Henrie (Wizards of Waverly Place) as a teenaged Reagan, Scott Stapp of Creed as Frank Sinatra, and if that last name-bomb doesn't blow your mind, there's a scene in which Pat Boone is present when a minister prophesies that Reagan will become president, and Pat Boone plays the minister while Blaine, Minnesota, city council member Chris Massoglia, who played the title character in The Vampire's Assistant, plays Boone.
It's a very entertaining, moving, thoughtfully structured and visually striking film. I doubt it'll win any Oscars because, you know, politics. But the Screen Actors Guild ought to give some love to a movie that depicts Reagan's role in keeping the actors' union independent. Other than that, the Three Scenes That Made It For Me are: (1) Reagan, rushed into surgery after being shot, wakes up long enough to say to the attending medics, "Please tell me you're all Republicans." This got the biggest laugh in the theater I saw it in. (2) Reagan cuts through the diplomatic wrangling at his first summit with Gorbachev by suggesting that the two leaders take a walk in the fresh air. (3) Reagan refuses to snap the nuclear football when the Soviets come within seconds of triggering global nuclear war over a flight of geese. There's a moment where he imagines the bombs coming down on a U.S. city and for a moment you want to touch yourself to confirm that you still exist and that this version of reality didn't happen.
I could mention a couple things I missed from this movie, but I won't because honestly, it's long enough – 2 hours, 21 minutes – and it owes the fact that I'm not complaining about its length to the narrowness of its focus, the clarity of its purpose, the tightness of its argument and the brisk pace I've mentioned. When it feels like it's racing ahead of you, your butt doesn't notice that it's bonding, possibly inextricably, with the seat under you. Add the fact that I ended the movie with tears on my cheeks and it's clear that I like this movie, and will recommended it anytime it's mentioned in my presence.
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