Rating: 
Summary: A cigar, but not close
Review: Joan Allen was Oscar-nominated for her role herein, and some were predicting it would be her time to win. I'm not sure why. As for Joan Allen, I've liked her a good deal better in other movies, such as NIXON. I even liked her considerably in PLEASANTVILLE, although I found the movie as a whole pretty flaky. [Joan Allen] plays a designee for Vice-President, appointed by the President after a Vice-President's death. The movie will focus on the confirmation process she has to go through and how it becomes nasty. Her opponents dig up an allegation that during her college days she participated in a group sex incident as a part of a fraternity initiation. She right off refuses to say whether the allegation is true or not, insisting that it is totally irrelevant to her qualifications to be Vice-President. To that extent I sympathize with her. I think it should be consideded irrelevant. But what in the movie does become relevant to those qualifications? Very little. The movie ends up dominated with the accusations about the alleged group sex and no less pre-occupied with her protestations of the question's irrelevance. If those are not what dominates the movie's screen-time, they certainly seem to be. Stretching that out into the main body of the movie would seem over-ponderous, and it is.
Rating:
Summary: Bogus: Hollywood PC: (Political Carnage)...
Review: First-off I enjoyed Rod Lurie's first-rate political sci-fi thriller DETERRENCE. Here an American President threatens use of nuclear weapons against the son of Saddam Hussein who...like daddy-like son...has launched an out-of-the-blue attack against oil field laden countries of The Middle East, and thus threatens the world's political/economic order.The "gimmicky" ending offended some viewers but most agree the edge-of-the-seat drama of FAIL-SAFE ilk made not only gripping entertainment but provided food for "provoked" thought.Not so,THE CONTENDER. The story of a woman senator's fight for confirmation to office of VP(a la Nelson Rockefeller)is stacked with cant(Liberal and Conservative "in extremis" )and IMPOSSIBLE plot devices.The only novel twist comes when President Jeff Bridges forgoes regailing viewers with wicked-gourmet propensities(He likes shark steak)to choose...at the film's climax...a grilled muenster sandwich, and the White House "combat-ready" kitchen is out of cheese! Senator Joan never really has a chance either on-or-off the FLOOR.Her persona is turn-coat Republican-to-Democrat-"back bencher" who is outspokenly pro-abortion and atheistic (her aristocrat father is a former Governor and vehemently anti-religious).She wants to repeal the Second Amendment(but wants a strong military). SHE VOTED TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT CLINTON. And: she doesn't eat meat... What chance--man or woman--would such a nominee have? She's further accused of being a family-breaking adulteress...which she is. And a tramp(who "gang-banged" Fraternity boys at college) which she ISN'T. The latter revelation comes after two-hours of excruciating SOAP OPERA wherein she's grilled by the Senate Nomination Commitee's Grand Inquisitor, Gary Oldman. Our man Gary,as usual, is the bad guy and gets his comeuppance at the end when his nominee is revealed as an egotistical psychopath(and MURDERER)! But folks, this still doesn't make Senator Joan qualified to be VP!(Even though she's shown jogging in ARLINGTON Cemetary through the CROSS rows of fallen American heroes as if she is a combat soldier too). President Jeff's "closing speech"...which is either fascist fantasy or satire...fails to be funny or incisive, and invokes the very McCarthyism it's supposed to be "heroically" denouncing. (You might not like the TV address President Emerson...in DETERRENCE...delivers to America following its near ORDEAL-BY-ATOMIC FIRE, but you don't laugh at it.) Despite a great cast and ambitious intentions, in my etimate, THE CONTENDER is ultimately a silly movie.Its pretensions to profound politics(principal actors are...with exception of the Prez as gallaPOLLING GOURMET...rank stereotypes)are bogus. Unlike CARNAGE & CULTURE a current book concerning THE WESTERN WAY of WAR,the farthest West this film goes is Hollywood PCA.The Carnage is a serious exploration of political infighting bartered-away for glitzy PC tract. To viewers insisting on 5-star ratings for THE CONTENDER,I suggest Recount......
Rating: 
Summary: Suspense and politics and sex
Review: I bought this movie as a free add on promotion with some other videos, I hadn't ever heard of the movie before but was pleasantly suprised. The plot is not what I would have expected for a political movie, and the ending did manage to suprise me, just that is enough to surpass expectations in the age of political thrillers. The movie only got three stars from me because I haven't had any desire to watch it again. Worth a look for sure but not quote worth two.
Rating: 
Summary: WHAT IF A WOMAN DARED TO BE VICE PRESIDENT?
Review: The CONTENDER tells the straightforward story about lies and corruption through a sharp and cutting tale that often verges on satire. The film is about what it takes for a woman -- or a man -- to get to the very top of American power: the White House. Democratic President Jackson Evans (fairly well played by Jeff Bridges) wants to redistribute some authority. As the movie opens, his vice president has just died. Evans' choice for successor is Senator Laine Hanson (Joan Allen). His closest advisors, Kermit Newman (Sam Elliott) and Jerry Tolliver (Saul Rubinek), prefer Governor Jack Hathaway (William L. Petersen). Hathaway just happens to be a close friend of Republican Congressman Shelly Runyon, the chair of the House committee that must confirm or reject the president's nominee. The cards are stacked against Evans and Hanson. True, one female character refers to the nastiness of Hanson's confirmation hearing as "an ideological rape of all women." But writer/director Rod Lurie avoids turning his film into a feminist diatribe. There are lots of complicated characters of both genders who are neither quite as perverse nor quite as innocent as they first appear. Runyon and his cronies turn up evidence of Hanson's college-age sexual escapades, and they are happy to use it for trying to spoil her nomination. This politician's methods are despicable, but par for the course inside the Beltway. Maybe his motives aren't as bad as methods. Runyon's not so against a woman in the White House as he just doesn't see Hanson's potential for greatness. Hanson is neither a big feminist nor even an appropriate role model for little girls or aspiring public servants. Loyalty? She switched parties, from Republican to Democratic. On top of that, she defies her new party by voting to impeach Clinton! This is in a reference, making the film seem up to date. On top of this, Hanson is an atheist. There's nothing wrong with that except in politics it's suicide. That's a nice touch in the movie, however. How often do you get to see a celluloid character casually rejecting religion on film? In "real life," remember in the last election season how many times the "G" word was shamelessly used as a political tool.?! Hanson's sexuality is a focal point in the movie. That she is sexual at all is enough to get her adversaries to condemn her. But Hanson refuses to put up with it. If "boys" can get away with being boys then Hanson is hell bent on girls being allowed to be girls. But here Washington is shown as a world where spin can turn a tragedy into political gain. It is a world that does its damnedest to reshape honest and gracious people into vicious, ruthless predators. But in THE CONTENDER, Washington is also a place in which greatness is not always visible, and those who have it and dare reveal it are in the greatest danger of losing it. This is the kind of film that either turns you on or turns you off. Some will be repulsed and say it is cynical and a phony Hollywood fantasy. Others will sit back and think, it's about time a movie told it the way it is. In either case, I found the movie entertaining ... and that's what a movie is supposed to be. It's not a great flick but it is good enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Engrossing
Review: My husband and I loved this movie. We don't take politics seriously, i.e., why would anyone want to subject themselves to life in a fishbowl and perhaps compromising their ethics. We just enjoyed this film on the merits of the acting and topic. The premise: A woman is nominated for vice-president after the serving VP dies. The film is biased, but since I agreed with the ideals and I am not a film critic, it didn't matter to me a bit. :)
Rating:
Summary: Yawn
Review: I just thought it was boring. I don't know what all these other people are saying that it glorifies the Dems any. It seemed to me that it made all the politicians looks like creeps and swindlers - republicans as well as democrats. I just stared at the screen for two hours wondering when it would end so I could go do something else. For the record, Gary Oldman was amazing. None of his usual over the top acting, which was a nice change. The other actors also put in good performances. I just never could figure out why they bothered.
Rating: 
Summary: self-righteous film, and people call me a liberal!
Review: Joan Allen plays Lainie Hanson, an Ohio senator picked to fill the office of Vice Presidency in this earnest but incredibly self-righteous and arguably hypocritical political thriller. "The Contender" is a lot like the lighter "American President" without as many likeable characters, deleting the jokes and swapping political ambition for the romance of Michael Douglas and Annette Benning. Otherwise, the film is the same, with a noble, intelligent and left-minded woman becoming something of a pawn between a similarly minded and somewhat arrogant President (Jeff Bridges) and an evil right-wing GOP warlord (Gary Oldman as the insidious Sheldon "Shelly" Runyan). Though Hanson ultimately reveals solidly liberal positions in her obligatory closing speech, we're supposed to believe that she was once a rank-and-file Republican. And despite how far left she's become, her positions are inexplicably the least of Runyan's concerns. Instead, Hanson's sexual history takes the stage during confirmation hearings, and Joan Allen's character must fend charges of a shocking but years past college-party turned orgy. As in "American President", our heroes suffer less from character assassination than from their own unwillingness to directly respond to it - it's beneath them. ...that is until the last moment when Jeff Bridges addresses a joint-session of congress in much the same way that Douglas did at the end of "American President". The film ends with the expected standing ovation, and the evil Runyan slinks off into the shadows. As always, the right isn't only evil, but cowardly. Hanson on the other hand is consistently heroic, even when explaining how she ruined her campaign manager's marriage. In another spot, Hanson picks up some dirt on her senatorial adversary, but refuses to wield it. As an alleged liberal, I still found this flick impossible. It's incredible that as accomplished a politician Runayn is, that he'd allow himself to get suckered into a character debate, no matter how apparently pious he is. (the characters are fully aware of the Lewinsky scandal, yet allow themselves to fall into the same quagmire.) We're supposed to decry how debate over character swamps over more important issues - like crime, health care and foreign relations - yet the sexual controversy of the film saves Allen from having to stand by her views, which are pretty controversial. (The 1st amendment was always meant to protect the state from religion, and never the other way around; guns should be taken from every home, but the specter of a police state overstepping constitutional freedoms to get them is ignored; the US should use its military power to stamp out global genocide, or right through might). No matter where you would stand on those views, you'd have to agree that they deserve more time than the lurid pseudo-issues dredged up here. That the script holds you at all is because of the stars, especially Oldman. I guess this film would play interestingly back-to-back with "Advise and Consent", the film based on the Drury novel. Both films represent polar opposites on politics, and yet have received a fair amount of credit for an even-handedness on issues that they neither deserve.
Rating:
Summary: I would have giving this movie a zero
Review: I never watched this movie. I don't watch any film about politics that come out of Hollywood. Why? Because Hollywood is biased and extremely liberal and would never make an honest film about politics. Those days are over and have been gone ever since the early sixties. I saw an interview Gary Oldman (one of the best actors working today) did on HBO, where he told the host of the show he didn't like the end result of the film. He said that Hollywood is full of Democrats that have no brains who ruined what could have been a good film. Actually remembering all the praise this film got when it was premiering it made me weary to view this film. And yes I actually believe no woman with a pro-choice belief, a non-believer in Christ and God, and with the political agenda to "take every gun out of every home in America" would never ever, ever get into the VP office. She just wouldn't.
Rating:
Summary: A Definite Contender For Any Political Film Collector
Review: Joan Allen deservedly received a slew of award nominations
(Oscar, Golden Globe, Independent Spirit, etc.) for her powerful performance as Senator Laine Hanson in THE CONTENDER. This is the kind of hard-hitting political film that the likes of Sidney Lumet and Norman Jewison used to make on a regular basis. The film also features fine performances by Gary Oldman (who plays a very unlikeable character with great conviction), Jeff Bridges (who, like Oldman, is consistantly good) and Christian Slater (who gives one of his best performances to date). THE CONTENDER is the kind of smart and suspenseful thriller that Hollywood used to do so well in the 1960s. Believe the hype and go check out this powerful and provocative film.
Rating:
Summary: "Otherwise, it was pretty good...."
Review: This movie brings to mind childhood memories - running across an open field of grass, barefoot and fancy-free. But then all of a sudden you feel that sickeningly warm gush between your toes and you realize that you've stepped-in "It". And you try to wipe it off...but that residue and smell just stays with you the whole day long. This past weekend I "stepped-in" The Contender. It's rare that I have such a visceral reaction to a movie and I'll admit that a good part of it has to do with the tripe that passed for political points of view on the part of the main characters. But beyond that, the imagery, the dialogue, the costumes....nearly everything about it was intelligence-insulting manipulation of the worst kind. Here's just a couple samples: The Republican "bad guy" (apparently redundant terms in the eyes of the writer/director, Rob Lurie) is shown eating bloody red meat - with close-ups of the plate just so it wouldn't be missed ("Thanks, Rob!") - like a guy who just stumbled down a mountainside with the Donner Party. At first it didn't sink in because I didn't want to believe that a movie with the high-profile DreamWorks name behind it would go for such a banal metaphor. Thankfully the creators of the film resisted what must have been an overwhelming temptation to have the Republican congressman grow fangs and flinch at the sight of a cross (actually, they saved the animosity and reflexive aversion for anything religious for the main character) The protagonist (or should I say, "protagonista"), Laine Hanson, was shown running/exercising in Arlington Memorial Cemetery several times during the course of the movie. In one scene she goes sprinting across the graves of the buried soldiers followed by a bout of stretching while standing between the rows of crosses marking the graves. I guess they were aiming at an allusion to the sacrifices of those who gave their lives for their country with Sen Hanson sacrificing her political aspirations for her moral stand....but instead they conjured scenes that were awkward, self-conscious and really pretty creepy if you think about it. All in all a regrettable waste of 4 bucks and, more importantly, 2+hours of my life. In fact, I'm almost afraid to talk about it with friends and family for fear that I might lose some respect for those who actually find the movie worthwhile. I know, I know - intolerance of the diversity of opinions, and all that stuff - its just so difficult to suffer fools, or at least foolish opinions. For those (like me) who are fascinated by dramatizations of the goings-on in the Oval Office, save your money and stick to "The Left...er...West Wing" . While this weekly drama has a tendency to lapse into the droning self-righteousness of liberal propaganda, it is at least, not generally mean-spirited in its partisanship. The same can't be said of The Contender.
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