Rating: 
Summary: Without Any Respect for Truth
Review: A great movie if you like fiction, total fiction. This movie is character assination, pure and simple. Any resemblance to truth or actual events is not only coincidental, it simply does not exist. Moreover, the acting is well below standard. Don't waste your time or money on this one.
B. Eberle
Vienna, Virginia
Rating: 
Summary: trash heaven
Review: Anyone who expects to see a balanced political view is in for a big disappointment but fans of bad made-for-TV bios will be in hog heaven. James Brolin is a dead-on as the clueless Reagan, although his performance and make-up are just this side of a marathon SNL skit. Judy Davis, meanwhile, never looks much like his calculating wife (the movie should have been called "Nancy Dearest") but nevertheless steals the show by suggesting what would have happened if Judy Garland had been cast in the Angela Lansbury role in "The Manchurian Candidate." And if this thing snags an Emmy nomination for best make-up, it will be in spite of Ron Jr.'s ridiculous wig which makes him look exactly like Prince Valiant. Actually, the most impressive work comes from the actress who plays rebellious Patty Davis--I'll have to watch it again to see whether the make-up crew bothered giving her a mid-career nose bob like the real Patty. This one gets my vote!
Rating: 
Summary: I learn better with documentaries.
Review: I did not know much about Reagan except his attempted assassination, his wife consulting astrologers to help in making
decisions for the country, Starwar's, his memory problems, Iranian bits and pieces, and the Bitburg incident. The movie filled in some of my gaps so it was a history lesson to some extent, but to me, the movie seemed shallow and forced. As for a review I saw which said how how dare they sour the name of one of the geatest presidents we ever had for instance with the Bitburg incident, all I could say is I'm sorry.
This movie was made using public accounts as stated at the beginning, and it is totally true that Reagan said what the reviewer used not as a criticism of Reagan, but as a reason to
portray this president as perfect, and the movie producers as rot. How low can this reviewer go and how low did Reagan go as well to say that the Nazi killers buried at Bitburg were surely as much victims as those in the concentration camps! This reviewer is absolutely ignorant or a twistering idiot. The fact is that Reagan did say the above regarding Bitburg Nazi's and by saying this, Reagan has diminished his moral stature to say the least. See for example 'Chutzpah' by A.Dershowitz, pgs.134-135.
Rating:
Summary: Highly entertaining history for television
Review: I liked this flick better than most made for TV movies but understand why Reagan conservatives were upset with it. For nothing about it supports the idea the Ronnie should be placed on Mt. Rushmore, an idea that was once given consideration inside the U.S. Congress. Fortunately, that was an idea that went the way of the dodo bird.
This movie was like a lot of biopics -- it skimmed over portions of the subject that had been discussed in other media. When showing Reagan's strongarm tactics with California college protestors while he served as governor of California in the 1960s, the viewer was given no insight into what made him the epitome of evil to college kids in that time. After all, Country Joe and Fish referred to him as "Ronald Ray-Gun Zap" at Woodstock!
Other vignettes -- including Nancy's "Just say no" campaign and her discussion with the president over funding AIDS prevention -- were equally superficial. Occasionally, however, a scene showed the heart of these two actors turned politicians turned power brokers.
In one scene, Ed Meese calls the president at 4:40 AM to tell him American fighter jets just shot down a couple Libyan jets that fired on them. "It happened five hours ago," Meese said. "It is handled." When returning to sleep, Nancy asked him what the call was. "Oh nothing," he said. "Ed handled it." That's followed by a scene of Nancy lecturing Meese and Mike Deaver on how they are to say the president is always aware of such events five minutes after they occur.
Other scenes of interaction between Reagan, Nancy, their two birth children and Reagan's children from his first marriage showed an uncanny insight into family dysfunction. These were probably the most hated scenes for those that wanted to cast the former president in stone in South Dakota.
Reagan lovers will be pleased to learn there aren't any scenes of him falling asleep at meeting! And while the flick focuses on Reagan's superficiality as both statesman and father, it also shows him to be a loving person and gives him kudos for ending the Cold War. In this respect it reminded me of the ESPN production about Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight, "Season On The Brink", that portrayed both his best and worst sides as a human being.
The plum of this film, however, is Judy Davis's performance as Nancy Reagan. While impossible to say if it was completely factual, it was certainly spiritually correct. This wonderful actress did a splendid job portraying the imperial "Quenn Nancy" wife of the governor and president, as well as her important role as person behind the power in the White House.
While James Brolin did a good job mimicking Reagan it is clearly Davis's portrayal that makes this film compelling and worth watching. Personally, I found the aura projected in the film to be accurate, as well. It played out the highlights of his presidency -- from the earliest budget-cutting and Evil Empire stomping to his eventual conflict with Iran-Contra -- as well as can be done in a few hours. I hope they do this well when they commit the life of two term president George Bush to celluloid!
Rating:
Summary: What's the controversy for?
Review: I went into this having a somewhat negative view of Reagan and a neutral opinion of his wife. I was quite surprised to find that it changed my opinion of Reagan for the better. Nancy, however, definitely comes off the worse. The portrayals all seem very honest and reasonable and the controversy surrounding it seems misplaced. In fact, all the hub-bub sourrounding this movie feels much more like an attempt to make sure the public only remembers the good things in Reagan's administration. Bottom-line, I would recommend this movie for what it is; a very good depiction of the events and a sometimes exaggerated depiction of the people in Reagan's life. Like the movie says, the roles are presented as a composite.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible DVD, not worth even a penny!
Review: I would give ZERO star to this trash! Everyone who is willing to get a truthful info about the Reagans, should buy a genuine DVD, books or vhs titles. This DVD title is no good and I still wonder who is so naive to watch it and shape his idea about the Gipper and his experiences.
Rating:
Summary: the movie IS believable- even if you are a Reagan Republican
Review: I've voted Republican my whole adult life and view myself as a "Reagan Republican". I watched this movie expecting to get upset at the Barbara Streisand crowd but found it not only believable (if you go in accepting a negative bias of events by the filmmaker) but somewhat compelling. Hey, it is tough to rise above the crowd to become Governor/ President, and it takes people behind the scenes pulling levers to get it done. Most of us don't have the stomach to play politics, Nancy and Mike Deaver did and Ronny was the perfect front man- likeable, principled, simplistic but able to communicate a vision most people found desirable. We all came to respect Nancy deeply for standing by President Reagan in his declining years, but we also knew she played hardball with his staff, was an eccentric Hollywood type. That's the way the movie plays it and I can't see what the problem is. Brolin does an admirable job and Judy Davis is great regardless of how accurately Nancy gets portrayed here. Deaver seems to have screamed the loudest about this flick, probably because early-on he's painted as pretty slick, although that seems to change after Reagan fires/rehires him during the 1980 campaign. Watch it- it's complicated but that's the world we live in, folks.
Rating:
Summary: Nancy and Ronnie
Review: Much of the hype of this television movie lies in the fact that CBS refused to air it, apparently bowing to conservative pressure. This of course created a bunch of hype prior to the release of the movie, and its quick demotion to a DVD release. After watching it, it made me wonder what all of the fuss was about. The Reagans is a comprehensive, yet inch deep look at a powerful couple destined to greatness in the political world.
James Brolin plays an eerie, and I mean eerie, Ronald Reagan throughout his lifetime. His acting is spot on in portraying a Reagan who is both wonderfully amiable to everyone that he meets, and yet distant to everyone who loved him the most. This Reagan is an actor through and through, and he continues his performance during his White House years. Judy Davis turns in an admirable performance as a hyper-supportive, controlling Nancy Reagan. I couldn't help but still see shades of Judy Garland in her performance here.
Nancy and Ronnie struggle with many issues not uncommon today: the politics of blended families, the politics within a relationship. The movie dares to suggest that Reagan and Nancy weren't perfect demi-Gods that the conservative portion of our population elevate him to be. Perhaps it's too daring to show this man, this couple, as human, foibles and all, and perhaps, that is the nature of the controversy.
Overall, very little was surprising about this movie, other than showing the onset of Reagan's Alzheimer's disease into his second term, which long has been suspected. It certainly wasn't the tell all bashing of the Reagans as some would like us to believe. If you want a glimpse into the lives of the Reagan, perhaps a perusal of this DVD would be in order.
Rating:
Summary: James Brolin in a Reagan Mask
Review: The film was not as bad as I expected from the reviews, except that James Brolin looked like he was wearing a Ronald Reagan smiling mask. If one were to take any single still frame out of the film it would look like Reagan. If you listened to the voice, it would sound like Reagan. However, Brolin lacked the life and expressions of the real Ronald Reagan. The real Reagan captivated audiences. Brolin seems flat and empty.The film is limited in time and cannot cover all the facts, but at times issues were raised without fully addressing them. For instance, the film raised the issue of Reagan saying he had seen the holocaust while his advisors note that Reagan never left the US during the war. They don't tell you that Reagan saw some of the first pictures of holocaust victims because of his role in making films for the war. Over all, it was an interesting film, but the flat emptiness in Brolin's presentation of Reagan was a big disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating if a bit aimless
Review: The problem with biopics is that in the real world events happen to people here and there. There is rarely a driving narrative to real people's people's lives. So you watch something like THE REAGANS fascinated by the detail (especially in its portrayal of the Reagan children trying to cope with their closed-off parents), but there's nothing to really be learned from the whole narrative. The Reagans meet and get married, have children; Ronnie runs for governor and then for the presidency four times (twice successfully); he gets shot in office and nearly undone by Iran/Contra, and then they go back to California. That's it. This miniseries was based on a book about the First Ladies of the US, so Nancy of course figures heavily into it. Judy Davis, inarguably one of the greatest actors living today, would seem born to play the ironwilled Nancy, and she approaches her part with a great deal of intelligence and makes Nancy seem enormously sympathetic even at her most imperious to her husband's staff or at her most firebreating to her children. She even gets to do a musical number, with great panache (Nancy's famous rendition of "Second-Hand Rose" for the Gridiron club), and she is allowed one exceptionally poignant scene (her meeting with her senile mother at a retirement home in the mid 80s). James Brolin fares less well: he looks very much like Reagan, and has the mannerisms and the voice down pat (he's even as good a mimic as President Reagan reportedly was), but he does not project the needed vitality. The Reagan children are well portrayed--lonely and needy Michael, upbeat Maureen, angry Patti (Zoie Palmer, in a particularly fine and furious small performance) and practical Ron Jr.--,but you feel they often get shunted off from the main narrative just as they apparently did in real life from their parents' all-consuming love relationship and political ambition. Republicans were furious before this miniseries aired about its antipathy towards the Reagans' politics, but the only real points it scores against the Reagan administration is in its willful obliviousness to the AIDS crisis.
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