Reagan, directed by Sean McNamara and based on the 2006 Paul Kengor book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, accounts for the first major attempt at a filmic portraiture of the 40th U.S. president. It’s strange that Ronald Reagan, the movie star president, hasn’t been viewed as a viable candidate for a presidential biopic until now. Reagan is surely as popular a modern president as W. Bush, who got the treatment from Oliver Stone in W. (who also directed Nixon) — of course, Stone’s sympathies didn’t exactly lie with either man. McNamara’s, however, certainly do with Reagan. The director’s first job in the entertainment industry was plugging in microphones at Reagan’s inauguration. McNamara would go on to direct such films as The Suite Life Movie, Bratz, and, more recently, Cats & Dogs 3: Paws Unite. In this context, Reagan stands out in his filmography as his first jump into a major theatrical release since 2011’s Soul Surfer.
Reagan wastes no time heading straight into a slow-motion recreation of the assassination attempt against the president, before cutting to an opening credit montage that summarizes, well, the film’s main concern: communism. Various newspaper clippings, film reels, and radio segments are patched together to tell the history of the Cold War up until the point that Reagan enters its domain as commander-in-chief. The rest of the film is told from the perspective of a fictional KGB agent, Viktor Nivikov (Jon Voight), recounting to a young devotee of the Soviet Union exactly how it fell, and to whom — enter Reagan (Dennis Quaid), the man Nivikov most blames for the fall of communism. Reagan’s history as a young actor in Hollywood is recounted — though the films of Allan Dwan are never mentioned. No Dwan cameo. No Cattle Queen of Montana or Tennessee’s Partner reference. Nothing. Reagan’s best roles! — as is his brief marriage to Jane Wyman (Mena Suvari). Nivikov even tells stories from Reagan’s childhood, where he was first exposed to a defector from the Soviet Union.
The film’s chronology is loose and more flexible toward its expository ends. Reagan eventually becomes an FBI informant to root out communism in Hollywood, rises through the ranks of SAG, and finds a more suitable partner in Nancy Davis (Penelope Ann Miller) before going on to a career in politics based almost wholly on his hatred and fear of the Soviet Union. The latter half of Reagan, then, finds the audience where they started — Reagan is president and has been shot. His survival is equated to divine purpose: so that he might rid the world of the scourge of Marxism. From here, the crux of the film revolves around Reagan and Gorbachev’s (Aleksander Krupa) relationship, and how Reagan’s natural charisma and refusal to bend to bullies (don’t worry, there’s a flashback for that) enabled him to deliver the words, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” with such force that the Soviet Union might as well have fallen that day. The film’s denouement at Reagan’s ranch, however, provides viewers something entirely different — a quiet, meditative moment for Reagan to reflect on his ailing health and mortality. The Gipper takes one last ride into the sunset.
Quaid and Miller actually turn in solid performances, especially considering the material and directorial pedigree guiding the film. But the bubble that is constructed around the Reagans feels fully lifted out of any recognizable reality, probably due in no small part to the fact that production was shot during and interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Every scene has the appearance of rushed narrative construction, and every image retains the same dull, flat, insipid nature of the last. The whole affair feels very made for TV, including a lackluster third act that lobs a softball to both Reagan and his hardline anticommunist ideology. The film takes great leaps to ensure the audience is able to understand the respect Gorbachev had for Reagan, and substitutes pleasant personalities for coherent politics when developing the two’s “frenemy” dynamic. And though the film makes brief mention of the controversies of the Reagan presidency through a montage of old protest signs and segments — “The Fake War on Drugs is really the new Jim Crow,” “89,343 deaths to AIDS. Reagan does nothing!” — the film has absolutely nothing to say that would meaningful survey or resolve these issues. Allusions to his ailing health and advanced age are put to bed with a single debate line (you know the one), and the Iran-Contra scandal is chalked up to a good man trying his best to save American lives (another all-timer line from Reagan, the one where he says his heart tells him one thing and the facts tell a different story). It’s one thing to go the route of hagiography and never mention the notable failures of Reagan and his presidency — his feud with the Black Panthers is not even addressed, for example — but Reagan makes the stranger choice to give voice to the issues of his conservatism and then, promptly, forget all about them, as if the act of forgetting is a substantive way to combat such critiques. Sweeping things under the rug is certainly not an un-American response to political tension, but it is a dramatically unconvincing one.
DIRECTOR: Sean McNamara; CAST: Dennis Quaid, Jon Voight, Penelope Ann Miller, Mena Suvari; DISTRIBUTOR: ShowBiz Direct; IN THEATERS: August 30; RUNTIME: 2 hr. 15 min.
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