The Apprentice, 2024.
Directed by Ali Abbasi.
Starring Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Emily Mitchell, Martin Donovan, Patch Darragh, Stuart Hughes, Eoin Duffy, Chloe Madison, Ben Sullivan, Mark Rendall, Joe Pingue, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Jim Monaco, Bruce Beaton, Ian D. Clark, Valerie O’Connor, James Madge, Ron Lea, Edie Inksetter, Jai Jai Jones, Tom Barnett, Jason Blicker, Frank Moore, Chris Owens, Sam Rosenthal, Clare Coulter, Ben Ball, Iona Rose Mackay, Samantha Espie, Craig Warnock, Kerry Ann Doherty, Dina Roudman, Matt Baram, Aidan Gouveia, Marvin Karon, Moni Ogunsuyi, and Brad Austin.
SYNOPSIS:
The story of how a young Donald Trump started his real-estate business in 1970s and ’80s New York with the helping hand of infamous lawyer Roy Cohn.
There is one thing we know for sure that Sebastian Stan and Michael Shannon disagree about. Some time ago, the latter was asked about failed businessman, bigot, racist, embarrassing president, insurrectionist, and now convicted felon Donald Trump and if he would ever portray him in a movie. The response was a blunt no followed up by scathing remarks including golden nuggets such as “fuck that guy. When he’s alone with his thoughts, he’s not capable of anything more complex than ‘I want some pussy and a cheeseburger. Maybe my wife will blow me if I tell her she’s pretty.”
With director Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice (from a screenplay by Gabriel Sherman), the focus is on a young Donald Trump just beginning to worm his way into the real estate business, with the filmmakers tasking themselves to chart how a man transforms into well, exactly what Michael Shannon said. He is often looked down on by his real estate developer father, Fred Sr. (Martin Donovan), for already being a screwup in that field, namely a prejudiced screwup with related lawsuits filed against him. Donnie can’t catch a break…
That’s until he meets who might be the closest thing to Satan walking the earth (at least until student supersedes mentor in vile narcissistic behavior), Roy Cohn (phenomenal work from Sucession‘s Jeremy Strong that feels authentic enough to be the real deal), a closeted lawyer who believes that the first rule is to attack. He also isn’t above blackmailing other closeted gay people to get his preferred outcome in court since this is the late 1970s, when such a thing would, unfortunately, be considered defamatory and career-killing. Perhaps most importantly, he teaches Donald Trump the lesson that seems to have gotten through his head the most; even if you have lost, bullshit your way into convincing everyone that you are still winning.
Roy Cohn senses a similar heartless, cutthroat mentality in Donald Trump, making him more than happy to take him under his wing and develop what comes across as a loveless father-son relationship strictly about business. Soon, Roy Cohn is basically Donald’s life cheat code, making lawsuits and other slanderous accusations go away. This goes further with money secured from the mayor to fund classier hotels and, eventually, Trump Tower. Shocking no one, many of the construction workers were screwed out of their paychecks, and the whole endeavor was financially shaky, regardless of how Donald spun it.
The Apprentice isn’t out to shock anyone narratively or regarding Donald Trump’s character, so that’s not a gripe but more of an observation. Having recently made a serial killer psychological thriller called Holy Spider that people should absolutely check out if they appreciate Ali Abbasi’s relentlessly grim approach to tone and storytelling, it makes sense that the filmmaker wants to not only stew in the horrors of what these two devils do to others and inevitably each other, but chart the progression of Donald from shark-like ambitious businessmen to a full-on heartless human being openly smiling when the man who taught him everything and gave him everything he could have possibly ever wanted to kickstart his enterprise comes down with Aids and is hiding it from the public before death. On that note, one actually feels a shred of empathy for someone as hateful and cruel as Roy Cohn, which is a monumental achievement. These two men are reprehensible human beings, but the performances somehow find emotion in this twisted dynamic between two evil men.
As for Donald Trump’s personal life, he meets an engaged Ivanna (a tremendous turn from Maria Bakalova faking smiles in public masking horrific physical and sexual abuse, and also showing an ambitious and talented eye for interior design) and still creepily pursues her because, well, it’s a movie about Donald Trump so what the hell do you expect? The most unsettling aspect here is that it never once feels like Donald Trump actually cares about her or sees her as a human being, but rather another conquest that fuels his rampant ego throughout his rocky success. Once she demonstrates more effectiveness in her line of work than he has in his, he is completely turned off sexually. All the while, he is gaining weight from abusing pills (and, I’m completely serious here, mouthing off to a doctor that exercise doesn’t work) and getting violent whenever she attempts standing up for herself.
Elaborating on Sebastian Stan’s performance, it doesn’t just work because of the transformation, which is fairly dialed back and not a Saturday Night Live skit. The performance and The Apprentice as a film are successful, if light on substance, because they accomplish a horrifically convincing depiction of a man becoming a monster alongside a gradual physical transformation bearing more and more similarities to the current-day Donald.
It’s unsettling to watch, noticeably backed up by a synthesized score from the team of Martin Dirkov, David Holmes, and Brian Irvine that occasionally feels directly inspired by Brian De Palma’s Scarface. That intentional choice would make sense if only to remind us that in most movies, it’s fun to cheer on the overambitious, cutthroat antihero. Here it isn’t, because Sebastian Stan perfectly captures that heartless lunatic that went on to become everything Michael Shannon described.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
