I am no fan of Ronnie Raygun, but Rin Tin Tin deserves a better biopic than this. The picture is in release today and it’s getting terrible reviews. The casting was eccentric to begin with. A 70-year-old Dennis Quaid portrays a 30-something Ronald Reagan and that’s Bizarro World just on its face. Then there’s Jon Voight with a fake Russian accent, in a performance which is being touted as “hilarious,” playing a KGB agent. I’m surprised Voight is turning in a tour de farce like that. While I can’t stand the man personally I have seen him play many roles creditably. Maybe his acting ability has deteriorated along with his politics. In any event, Daily Beast is calling Reagan the “worst movie of the year,” which is straightforward and unambiguous, unlike the plot of this simpering soap operatic opus from Hell.
Directed by Sean McNamara, the artist behind 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, Cats & Dogs 3: Paws Unite, and Baby Geniuses and the Treasure of Egypt and its follow-up Baby Geniuses and the Space Baby, Reagan lives up to its creator’s illustrious canon.
Describing this two-hour, 20-minute film (which has been sitting on the shelf for close to four years) as a hagiography is to understate its fawning celebration of its subject, who’s presented as not merely a charismatic actor and effective statesman but as God’s chosen warrior in a titanic battle between good and evil. Regardless of how you feel about Ronald Reagan the president, most will be united in finding this biopic a preachy, plodding, graceless groaner.
Now that’s the most positive portion of the review, so stop there unless you have a sadomasochistic streak, which evidently the filmmakers had.
In narration, the Gipper (Dennis Quaid) remarks that this near-death experience [arising out of his assassination attempt and this is the first I’ve heard of it] is part of a “divine plan,” at which point Reagan establishes its present-day framing narrative, in which a promising young Russian politician (Alexey Sparrow) visits former spy Viktor Petrovich (Jon Voight) to hear about the legend of the 40th president.
This involves Voight affecting a hilarious Russian accent (as when he refers to “da Hollywood glitz and glamoor”) and, in flashbacks, wearing a fake beard that’s as dark as his awful dye job. His performance is no more subtle, dominated as it is by faux-sage pronouncements about how he knew that Reagan was the Soviet Union’s most formidable adversary—they called him “The Crusader!”—and his laughably fearful reaction-shot expressions whenever the president makes a speech or move that challenges the USSR’s ambitions.
Reagan subsequently rewinds to 1922 Dixon, Illinois, where adolescent Reagan (Tommy Ragen)—known by his childhood nickname Dutch—hones his public speaking skills at the First Christian Church and abides by the pious teachings of his devout mother Nelle (Amanda Righetti). Reagan’s dad Jack (Justin Chatwin) is a drunken lout but Nelle is sure that God has a purpose for her son, and he starts to discover what it is while a teenage lifeguard (David Henrie).
Now the Reagan biopic sounds like the Nixon biopic, with the saintly mother and father in the shadows. But I give it up completely to Anthony Hopkins, who did a hell of a job in the Nixon biopic and had a good script to work from. That is not the case here with Quaid’s interpretation of Reagan, which as you’ll see from the trailer, is caricature, rather than interpretation and propaganda presented so plainly that the net effect is self parody, rather than an homage to the 40th president. I am beginning to understand why this sat on the shelf for four years. Why it was released 66 days before the 2024 election is my query.
By the time he arrives in Hollywood, he’s embodied by Quaid, and the sight of the 70-year-old actor trying to play a thirtysomething Reagan is about as awkward as it sounds. Such clunkiness is omnipresent in Reagan, whether it’s Reagan cornily fighting communist labor leader Herb Sorrell (Mark Kubr) on behalf of Jack Warner (Kevin Dillon) and the Screen Actors Guild—Sterling Hayden dubs Reagan “a one-man battalion against this thing!”—or sharing a strained meet-cute in his office with future second wife Nancy (Penelope Ann Miller). […]
Nonsensicality abounds, never more so than in Petrovich’s explanation for Reagan’s success: “People will not give their lives for power or a state or even ideology. People give their lives for one another, for the freedom to live those lives as they choose, and for God. We took that away. The Crusader gave it back to them.” Good luck separating truth from slop in that whopper. […]
Reagan concludes with an Alzheimer’s-afflicted Reagan riding off into the sunset. Yet for all the effort it expends trying to sell the late president as the embodiment of American virtue, McNamara’s film is so ungainly and transparent that it plays like embarrassing propaganda.
Here’s the trailer. I am no fan of Ronald Reagan but the man deserves better than this. He at least deserves a Hopkins-level performance in Nixon. What a topsy turvey world we live in when Reagan devotees give the man far less than he deserves, while people who couldn’t stand Reagan cry for the justice of a decent remembrance of him on film. I would shudder to think what kind of a product would have been cobbled together if Reagan haters had made this flick.
Ursula I agree with your review of this monstrosity but let’s NOT forget Reagan was a phucking monster who had Americans continued to be held hostage by dealing with the radicals in Iran, not the elected government, so he could steal the election from arguably the Most moral man to hold the office…Carter. Then, while continuing Nixon’s political terrorist campaign against cannabis users, proven to be political terrorism, he’s involved in a dirty arms/cocaine deal to fund rapist killers in Cental America. Then he skates on unimaginable hypocrisy, murder, the criminalization of 700,000 citizens a year. By the way what idiot couldn’t say tear down that wall…duh…the west had been at that task starting after WW2…AND it only happened because the Russian leader wasn’t a hard line fascist/dictator like Putin. He deserved prison and disgrace but, in this insane asylum, he’s revered. Not by me. I guess he was innocent because he forgot. Too bad Ted Bundy didn’t think of that loophole.
As I said, I’m no fan of Reagan nor was I a fan of Nixon, but Reagan and any occupant of the Oval Office deserves a decent biopic. That’s my point. This movie is a travesty.
A decent biopic would lay out reagan’s crimes for everyone to see. He was no hero, not a good actor, and not an overly good person at all (so of course the ‘pubes would want him). The one thing I think gives him his just desserts is the fact that the RWNJ’s in the magat/’pube party consider him to be a RINO.
reagan deserves nothing but disdain and contempt.
I think a good biopic (and again Nixon is an example) doesn’t pull any punches about what actually took place. This movie, Reagan, is fawing pap. And it’s amateurish as hell. Say what you will about Ron and Nancy they were movie actors. These two dorks don’t do them justice. I think it’s entirely possible to do a pic about Reagan and show the awfulness of his administration and his show biz roots, “Bedtime For Bonzo” and all of it.
I’ll tell you one thing, it would play well as black comedy. From Bedtime For Baonzo to Iran Contra? Seriously? Truth is stranger than fiction. All that madness with Oliver North? There’s plenty of material here, it’s just not being addressed at ALL.
Since the flick opened here today, our local paper, Newsday, ran the WaPo review, which gave it one-and-a-half stars.
The review opens with, “For a movie about the Great Communicator, ‘Reagan’ communicates surprisingly little”, goes on to describe it “as rosy and shallow as anything in a Kremlin May Day parade”, and concludes with “As pop-culture propaganda the movie’s strictly for true believers. As history, it’s worthless.”
👎👎👎👎👎😁😁
That’s my point exactly. The Reagan administration, like Nixon, was filled with all kinds of corrupt characters and scenarios. This doesn’t touch any of it. It stinks as history and what’s laughable is that it doesn’t even remotely represent Reagan in any relatable way. It’s caricature, like you frequently see with Marilyn Monroe and she was a fascinating character.
IMO, this is GOP Propaganda, released now to try & save Trump’s Campaign & RW agenda! It’s so OBVIOUS, it’s laughable! How stupid the RW think Americans are, it’s actually insulting. But that has been Repub’s problem all along, they under estimate our “Common Sense” & Critical Thinking Skills. And over estimate their “acting skills” as portraying a CREDIBLE POLITICAL Party!
I have to believe you’re right. This did sit on the shelf for four years and I’ll tell you that’s rare. I’ve seen scripts sit on shelves for years (I workedin Z grade movies in the early 80’s when I was young) but finished product? Never. This is the first time I’ve heard of such a thing.
So I guess the idea is to “unite” the “party of Reagan” on Labor Day weekend. Good luck with that. Daily Beast is not the only outlet panning this POS.
The only person who has done more damage to this country than Reagan is Mitch McConnell. The other heavy hitters include the orange fart stain of course, and Newt Gingrich.
Voight was once a decent actor. I had a huge crush on Dennis Quaid when we were both in our 30’s after seeing him in The Big Easy, and even went to see him perform with his band at a local night club. Now, I wouldn’t pay a nickel to see either of them do anything. I won’t support anyone who supports a fascist, misogynistic con man.
I liked Voight’s interpretation of FDR. And he was good in that TV series about the Hollywood fixer. The name escapes me right now. But if we are to believe the reviews, this is Voight at his bottom.
I thought voight had “a real purty mouth”. Every time I think of voight, that is what I think of.
In a way the movie is probably fitting – I’ve suffered through a couple of B movies where he had a leading role (I hesitate to use the word ‘star’) and, imho he was totally wooden and a terrible actor
Lassie and Champion were better than him
I think this is a mockery of Reagan. Which is why I said I wondered what Reagan haters would have cobbled together if this is what his admirers came up with. And I don’t see this helping Trump’s cause a tall a tall.
Ursula. I get it. Frontline that’s shows on PBS does a good job…distortion is still propaganda. The last time I liked Dennis Quaid was when he was virtually an unknown in Breaking Away, the bike movie. Voight was great in Midnight Cowboy but who knew how he was going to turn out.