The Ides of March is currently my 2nd favorite film of 2011. From it's all star cast to it's smart script, this film fully entertains. The film is directed by George Clooney and stars Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright, and Evan Rachel Wood.
Ryan Gosling stars as Stephen Meyers, a campaign manager for the Democratic Governer of Pensylvanina Mike Morris (George Clooney) who's running for President, currently seeking the Democratic slot. Paul Zara (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is another campaign manager and a friend of Stephen's while Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) plays the campaign manager of the Arkanas Senator competing against Morris for the campaign spot. Marisa Tomei plays Ida, a New York times reporter and friend of Paul and Stephen.
Meyers meets Duffy in a bar where Duffy attempts to convince him to leave Morris and work for him instead. Despite Meyers saying no, this encounter leads into a complex series of dirty politics.
The cast in this film is universally excellent, but it's Giamatti and Hoffman who steal the most scenes. Gosling once again proves himself to be one of the best young actors today with his subtly complex performance as Morris. Clooney surprisingly has very little screentime despite being the director, but his performance is solid, though not Oscar worthy. He'll be getting nominated for The Descendants to make up for that. Marisa Tomei is also strong as is Evan Rachel Wood as an intern in Morris' campaign. Jeffrey Wright (Source Code, Syriana, Casino Royale) has a small role as a Senator that both candidates are attempting to get an endorsement from. Wright is actually a very good actor so it was disappointing to see him with less than 10 minutes of actual screentime. Still he does decent, but it's the kinda role that's not really that difficult to pull off. Not up to the level of his vastly underrated performance in Syriana.
The film is filled with unexpected turns and revelations and moves along at an excellent pace. It never feels boring or tedious.
It should also be noted that this is NOT a political movie like Syriana. This is a movie about people in Politics. We only hear a little bit of Morris' actual political opinions because that's not important. The movie is about people in politics and their lust for power. You don't need to have even an interest in politics to enjoy this movie.
One complaint that I've heard about this movie is that it's "liberal propoganda." If you've actually seen this movie and you believe that then you must have a stick so far up your ass that it's damaging your brain. It's very easy to assume that this film is liberal propoganda as it's directed by George Clooney, a self proclaimed liberal and political activist. I'll admit that I was afraid that the film WOULD be liberal propoganda, but it's not. There are no republican or conservative characters in the film. There is only one mention of republicans when Giamatti talks about "getting dirty like the elephants" or something like that. He meant that as a compliment. The Liberal Democrats of this movie are mostly portrayed as being corrupt, greedy, power hungry liars. I wonder if these far right conservatives would be saying the same thing if the film was identical but about the republican primary.
The most common criticism with this movie is that it doesn't tell the audience anything about politics that we don't already know. The film explains to us that politics is a dirty business and most politicians are corrupt assholes. Yeah, most of us knew that, but this isn't a history lesson. this is a movie. I didn't watch it in hopes of learning something knew about politics. I watched it in hopes of being entertained and I was.
Overall, The Ides of March currently stands as my 2nd favorite film of 2011 (First is Drive, also starring Gosling). A few months ago, I thought it would have a good chance at the Oscars in February but the hype has really died down. It's a shame because this movie is great.
5/5
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