When I walked into an empty theater to watch “Reagan” last weekend, my expectations were low for two reasons. First, I’d only learned of its existence the day before, and nobody I talked to seemed to have heard of it either. Second, I hate former President Ronald Reagan. Any director trying to make a film about him will need to take his very real and numerous shortcomings seriously. The film’s poster, one of the few pieces of promotional materials I had seen, depicted Reagan in a cowboy hat in front of the American flag. It did not inspire me with hope. I was ready to be angry.
The error of my ways became clear to me very quickly. It was obvious that “Reagan” was not real enough to have serious political feelings about. In nearly every technical aspect of filmmaking, it fails. Its lighting is flat and colorless; its camera is static, and huge portions of the movies are shot in cramped, dark rooms. Visually, the whole thing is devoid of life. Whoever edited “Reagan” must have noticed this too because the music was overbearing enough to distract from the visuals.
It quickly became evident that the acting would also be unwatchable. The film’s emotional core hinges on the relationship between Nancy and Ronald Reagan, but the pair have absolutely no chemistry. It actually made me uncomfortable to watch their scenes together. I’ve never seen two actors less comfortable together on screen.
The facial visuals don’t help either. I thought Dennis Quaid, the titular actor, was wearing a bad prosthetic nose to look more like Reagan. Both Nancy and Ronald seem to be the victims of face-melting after extensive cosmetic surgery. In a couple of scenes, the pair share long kisses, which are easily the low points of the movie. Yet, those scenes are far from the film’s worst crime: It’s boring.
The film gives a meandering overview of Reagan’s entire life, beginning at his childhood and ending at Reagan’s dementia-riddled final horseback ride to the tune of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Interestingly, the movie is framed through the storytelling device of Viktor Petrovich, an ex-KGB agent explaining how the Soviet Union fell, which briefly threatened to be interesting. This was short-lived. Reagan is immediately identified as the sole cause of the collapse of the USSR, and great pains are made by Petrovich to analyze how Reagan’s good, hardworking Christian mother raised him.
The movie then takes a quick pit stop at Reagan’s acting years, showing him participating in the Red Scare and single-handedly standing up to communist union bosses. From then on, he marries and has his political career, which is the bulk of the movie and unfortunately not worth summarizing. Anything mildly scandalous is removed in favor of more scenes of him winning elections while denouncing the evils of the Soviet Union, or sitting in dark rooms with ambassadors and advisors.
Towards the middle of the movie, a montage of newsreels is presented to speed us through the Reagan presidency. The reels show us the outrageous — in the context of the movie — vilification of Reagan in the media through rapid-fire edits of protestors carrying ridiculous anti-Reagan slogans and stoned college students denouncing him. Interspersed are actual clips of newscasters announcing tens of thousands of deaths from AIDS and the Iran-Contra affair — the only mention of both. I have to assume they wanted to dilute Reagan’s scandals by painting the man as being unfairly attacked by the media. It really backfired, and the horror of those scandals really sours the saccharine conservative image it very quickly returns to.
The movie is frankly embarrassing, and, for 25 million dollars, I can only conclude it was intended as a tax write-off à la “The Producers” (1967). Save yourself two hours and 20 minutes and the price of a ticket by never watching this movie.
