{"id":3790,"date":"2024-09-03T20:34:32","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T20:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3790"},"modified":"2024-10-19T21:51:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T01:51:48","slug":"reagan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/03\/reagan\/","title":{"rendered":"Reagan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Reagan<\/strong> (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ShowBiz Direct\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 135 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (violent content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sean McNamara\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Howard Klausner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Coda\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Christian Sebaldt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 30, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller, Jon Voight, Mena Suvari, Alex Sparrow, C. Thomas Howell, Amanda Righetti, Justin Chatwin, Kevin Sorbo, Lesley-Anne Down, Xander Berkeley, Jennifer O\u2019Neill, Trevor Donovan, David Henrie, Kevin Dillon, Robert Davi, Nick Searcy, Ryan Whitney, Dan Lauria, Marshall R. Teague, Mark Moses, Rachel Cannon, Scott Stapp, Olek Krupa, Darci Lynne, Pat Boone, Elya Baskin, Mark Kubr, Derek Richardson, Randy Wayne, Moriah Smallbone, Sean Hankinson, Hideo Kimura, Chris Massoglia, Skip Schwink.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ve talked with a few people about the biopic Reagan<\/strong> in the weeks leading to its release and they\u2019d always say that lead actor Dennis Quaid looks nothing like the former US President. I\u2019d always counter that Anthony Hopkins looks nothing like Richard Nixon, but he did an excellent job playing him in Oliver Stone\u2019s 1995 film. Quaid\u2019s portrayal of the 40th<\/sup> President isn\u2019t on that level, but neither is the movie about his life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m just going to come out and say it. Reagan<\/strong> is extremely biased in Ronald Reagan\u2019s favor. It\u2019s less a biopic than it is a hagiography that sings Ronnie\u2019s praises while all but ignoring his faults. I expected as much. It\u2019s an MJM Entertainment production, an outfit that specializes in Christian movies. It figures they\u2019d fund a film about an ultra-conservative President as long as it makes him look good. That\u2019s exactly what director Sean McNamara (Soul Surfer) does by showing how Reagan ultimately brought about the downfall of the Soviet Union (?!) while not showing us how he blatantly ignored the AIDS crisis during his Presidency.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like most biopics, Reagan<\/strong> opens with a significant event in the subject\u2019s life. In this case, it\u2019s the attempt on his life on March 30, 1981. He was leaving the Washington Hilton after a speaking engagement when John Hinckley Jr. shot him along with Press Secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent and a Washington D.C. police officer. You\u2019d think this would serve as the framework for the film, but it doesn\u2019t. Instead, Reagan\u2019s life story is told by a former KGB agent (Voight, Deliverance) to a young politician (Sparrow, Space Force) who wants to know why the Soviet Union fell.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The KGB guy explains his job was to profile people who could become threats, people like Ronald Reagan. He takes us through his life beginning with his childhood in Dixon, IL where was raised by a devoutly religious mother and alcoholic father. He goes on to recount the significant events in the future President\u2019s life: his time in Hollywood, first as an actor then SAG president (and FBI informant) where he waged a war against Communists in the entertainment industry; the end of his first marriage to actress Jane Wyman (Suvari, American Beauty) and second marriage to Nancy Davis (Miller, Carlito\u2019s Way); the beginning of his political career and ultimately, the White House years (1981-89).<\/p>\n

\u00a0The film Reagan<\/strong> isn\u2019t uninteresting. It held my attention throughout. Quaid delivers a somewhat convincing performance as Reagan. He might not resemble him all that closely, but he definitely sounds like him. I lost count of how many times he says \u201cwell\u201d. As Nancy, his wife and most ardent supporter, Miller is very good. She advocates for him throughout his life from his runs for office to his fight with Alzheimer\u2019s at the end. The supporting cast is rather eclectic. It includes former Brat Packer C. Thomas Howell (The Outsiders) as Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Robert Davi (Die Hard) as Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Lesley-Anne Down (North and South) as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Kevin Dillon (The Blob) as studio head Jack L. Warner and Jennifer O\u2019Neill (Summer of \u201942) as the older version of Reagan\u2019s mother Nelle. Given the movie\u2019s religious roots, Kevin Sorbo (TV\u2019s Hercules) and singer Pat Boone show up to the party too. Oh yeah, look for AGT winner and ventriloquist Darci Lynne as a swimmer saved by lifeguard Reagan.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Reagan<\/strong> might be interesting, but it is not balanced. It is extremely one-sided. McNamara and writer Howard Klausner (Space Cowboys) do a lot of cherry picking here. They don\u2019t talk about Reagan\u2019s failures of faults, just his accomplishments as a feared Commie fighter and fix-it President. The whole Iran-Contra affair is especially mishandled. He nearly got impeached because of it, but the movie treats it like it was no big deal. It also sweeps the AIDS crisis under the rug. It\u2019s okay though, it makes sure we all see Reagan\u2019s famous \u201ctear down the wall\u201d speech that led to the taking down of the Berlin Wall in 1989. As for Ronnie being directly responsible for the dissolution of the USSR, that\u2019s a reach.<\/p>\n

\u00a0All in all, Reagan<\/strong> isn\u2019t a bad biopic. It\u2019s a biopic that\u2019s badly handled. It\u2019s not objective at all. A couple of the people I talked to mentioned Oliver Stone, saying he would have been a better choice of directors. Maybe so, but wouldn\u2019t it be just as biased in the other direction? He did a real number on Nixon and George W. Bush; isn\u2019t it reasonable to assume he\u2019d do the same to Ronnie? Think about it.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reagan (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ShowBiz Direct\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 135 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (violent content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sean McNamara\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Howard Klausner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Coda\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Christian Sebaldt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 30, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller, Jon Voight, Mena Suvari, Alex Sparrow, C. Thomas Howell, Amanda Righetti, Justin Chatwin, Kevin Sorbo, Lesley-Anne Down, Xander Berkeley, Jennifer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Reagan-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3790"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5206,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3790\/revisions\/5206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}