With: Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller, Nick Searcy, C. Thomas Howell, Kevin Dillon, Skip Schwink, Mena Suvari, Jon Voight, Trevor Donovan, Lesley-Anne Down, Aleksander Krupa, Hideo Kimura, Robert Davi, Scott Stapp, Xander Berkeley, Moriah Peters, Amanda Righetti, Justin Chatwin, Ryan Whitney, Elya Baskin, Chris Massoglia, Mark Moses, Dan Lauria, Tommy Ragen, David Henrie
|
Written by: Howard Klausner, based on a book by Paul Kengor
|
Directed by: Sean McNamara
|
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violent content and smoking
|
Running Time: 141
|
|
Date: 08/30/2024
|
|
|
|
Well...
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Sean McNamara's by-the-numbers biopic Reagan is far less than Ronald Reagan deserved, a soggy, second-rate attempt at myth-making that cares more for legacy than about who the man behind the legend really was.
Young up-and-coming Russian politician Andrei Novikov (Alexey Sparrow) meets with retired KGB agent Viktor Petrovich (Jon Voight) to learn about how the Soviet Union fell. Petrovich tells the story of Ronald Reagan (Dennis Quaid), whose progress he followed for many years.
An actor in Hollywood, Reagan became President of the Screen Actors Guild and fought Communist attempts to control the unions. There, he also met his future bride, Nancy (Penelope Ann Miller). Finding his footing in politics, he was elected governor of California. He made an unsuccessful attempt to run for U.S. President in 1976, but won in 1980. In the White House, he used his powers to continue to fight the Soviets and Communism, undeterred, even by the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
A great biopic finds an emotional center in a famous person, and a decent biopic at least has an admirable performance at its center. Reagan does neither. Directed by McNamara — whose resume includes several made-for-TV Christmas movies, Bratz movies, and Baby Genius sequels, not to mention the aggressively awful Dangerous Game: The Legacy Murders — this movie begins with the perplexing choice to have an ex-KGB spy tell the story.
Could this really be the person (an amalgamation apparently based on several real people) who knows Reagan best? This decision also makes the fight against Communism the central point of the movie, which is problematic at best.
So scene after scene consists of either "and then this happened," or so-called "legendary" moments such as a prophecy (!) predicting that Reagan would be President. Not one moment is organic or reveals anything personal. It goes without saying that the movie avoids any character flaws or controversies; it's the opposite of a movie like Oliver Stone's nuanced Nixon.
Then there's Quaid in the lead role. Normally a likable, charming actor, he can't really find a center to the character. His voice wavers between raspy and squeaky, and he frequently lets his familiar sideways smile creep across his face. He always seems more like Dennis Quaid than Reagan. (Ironically, his brother Randy played Reagan on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, and the two performances are comparable.) Likewise, not one supporting character makes any impact.
Fans of history and politics would do better reading Reagan's Wikipedia page than watching Reagan.
|
