{"id":564,"date":"2011-10-18T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T19:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ealasaid.com\/writing\/reviews\/?p=564"},"modified":"2022-06-11T11:14:17","modified_gmt":"2022-06-11T18:14:17","slug":"ides-of-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/2011\/10\/18\/ides-of-march\/","title":{"rendered":"Ides of March"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nDirected by: George Clooney
\nStarring: George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti
\nRated: R for pervasive language<\/p>\n

The political thriller is a known quantity: cynical, frequently gritty, and not generally given to happy endings. George Clooney\u2019s new film, \u201cIdes of March,\u201d is no different. The cast is spectacular, but the film winds up a rather heavy-handed, workmanlike piece, hampered by a so-so script. It\u2019s not bad, but it\u2019s not as great as we can be forgiven for hoping \u2013 much like the politician at its center.<\/p>\n

Stephen (Ryan Gosling) is a campaign staffer for Governor Mike Morris (Clooney), an idealistic Presidential candidate who wants to run a clean campaign and make a real difference. Stephen has worked a lot of campaigns for such a young guy and can handle reporters easily, but he\u2019s been swept off his cynical feet by Mike and turned into a true believer. His boss, Paul (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is even more experienced and cynical, and is mortal enemies with Tom (Paul Giamatti), the campaign manager for the opposing candidate. When Tom makes a play to hire Stephen away from the Morris campaign, everything begins to fall apart.<\/p>\n

This should be a great film. Clooney is a very talented actor and a good director, and Giamatti and Hoffman are spectacularly gifted character actors. Gosling is surprisingly skilled under his poster-boy good looks, too. So why isn\u2019t it amazing?<\/p>\n

The problem is that it\u2019s pretty much impossible to make a political film in this day and age that isn\u2019t extremely heavy-handed. In a nation generally perceived as divided into extremes, everyone has passionate feelings about politics, and even more passionate ones about politicians \u2013 and filmmakers are no different . \u201cIdes of March\u201d lacks the light touch it needs to be anything but a two-by-four to the skull. Everything, down to the music, is heavy-handed.<\/p>\n

There are two places \u201cIdes of March\u201d succeeds, and for some viewers they may be enough to make the film worth watching. The first is the acting. Giamatti, Hoffman, and Clooney are all in fine form. They\u2019re somewhat hampered by the script at times, but for the most part they make their characters believable, complex, and a lot of fun to watch, especially when they interact. Gosling is perfectly cast as the golden boy of the campaign, the one we know is either going to be utterly torn up by the impending storm or who will rise above it and become the thing he hates. Gosling juggles his character\u2019s blended cynicism and idealism with a fairly deft touch, and manages to make Stephen engaging even when he\u2019s being despicable.<\/p>\n

The other strength the film has is that it assumes the audience is intelligent. Some of its central exchanges are not actually heard, just shown \u2013 and sometimes not even that. One such conversation takes place inside an SUV with tinted windows while the camera lingers outside, stationary and without accompanying audio other than the over-the-top music. The context of the scene and the look on the face of the character who exits the SUV before it drives off say everything we need to know about how the conversation went.<\/p>\n

Taken as a whole, \u201cIdes of March\u201d is a solid political thriller. No, it\u2019s not subtle. It\u2019s not groundbreaking. But if you\u2019re looking for an entertaining hour and a half, and want to watch an indictment of the political machine that takes idealists and crushes them into paste, you\u2019ll probably find that it hits the spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The political thriller is a known quantity: cynical, frequently gritty, and not generally given to happy endings. George Clooney\u2019s new film, \u201cIdes of March,\u201d is no different. The cast is spectacular, but the film winds up a rather heavy-handed, workmanlike piece, hampered by a so-so script. It\u2019s not bad, but it\u2019s not as great as we can be forgiven for hoping \u2013 much like the politician at its center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[51,52,92],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-disappointing","tag-political-thriller","tag-rated-r"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/idesofmarch.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oSX4-96","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1533,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions\/1533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}