The Apprentice (2024) – Film Review

The apprentice2024.

Director: Ali Abbasi.
With 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.

SUMMARY:

The story of how a young Donald Trump started his real estate business in 1970s and 1980s New York with the helping hand of notorious lawyer Roy Cohn.

We know for a fact that Sebastian Stan and Michael Shannon don’t agree on one thing. The latter was asked some time ago about the failed businessman, bigot, racist, embarrassing president, insurrectionist and now convicted felon Donald Trump and asked if he would ever portray him in a film. The answer was a resounding no, followed by scathing remarks, including gold nuggets like “Fuck this guy.” When he’s alone with his thoughts, he’s incapable of anything more complex than “I want pussy and a cheeseburger.” Maybe mine will “Woman will blow me away if I tell her she’s pretty.”

With director Ali Abbasi The apprentice (from a screenplay by Gabriel Sherman) focuses on a young Donald Trump just starting to break into the real estate business, with the filmmakers tasked with chronicling how a man transforms into a good man, just that , what Michael Shannon said. His father, Fred Sr. (Martin Donovan), a real estate developer, is often looked down upon because he is already a failure in the field, namely a biased failure with lawsuits against him to boot. Donnie can’t catch a break…

Until he meets Roy Cohn, the closest thing to Earth-walking Satan (at least until the student replaces the mentor with vile narcissistic behavior) (phenomenal work by Succession(Jeremy Strong, feeling authentic enough to be the real deal), a closeted lawyer who believes the first rule is to attack. He also doesn’t shy away from blackmailing other gays to get his desired outcome in court, as this is the late 1970s when such a thing was unfortunately considered defamatory and career damaging. Perhaps most importantly, he teaches Donald Trump the lesson that seems to have been on his mind the most; Even if you lost, use nonsense to convince everyone that you’re still winning.

Roy Cohn senses a similarly heartless, murderous mentality in Donald Trump, which makes him more than happy to take him under his wing and develop what appears to be a loveless father-son relationship that’s all about business. Soon, Roy Cohn is essentially Donald’s life scam code, making lawsuits and other slanderous accusations go away. This goes further by securing money from the mayor to fund fancier hotels and eventually Trump Tower. What shocked no one was that, no matter how Donald explained it, many construction workers were deprived of their wages and the whole venture became financially shaky.

The apprentice is not intended to shock anyone narratively or in terms of Donald Trump’s character, so this is not a criticism, but rather an observation. I recently read a serial killer psychological thriller called “ Holy spider That people should definitely watch if they appreciate Ali Abbasi’s relentlessly dark approach to tone and narrative style, it makes sense that the filmmaker would not only want to revel in the horrors of what these two devils do to others and, inevitably, each other, but also wants to trace the progress of Donald, from shark-like, ambitious businessman to a completely heartless human being who openly smiles as the man who taught him everything and gave him everything he could ever want to boost his business comes down with AIDS fell ill and hid it from the public before death. In that sense, you actually feel a little compassion for someone as hateful and cruel as Roy Cohn, which is a monumental achievement. These two men are reprehensible people, 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 great departure from Maria Bakalova, who fakes a smile in public to hide horrific physical and sexual abuse and also displays an ambitious and talented flair for interior design) and still creepily haunts her because, well, it’s a movie about Donald Trump, so what the hell do you expect? The most disturbing aspect of this is that it never feels like Donald Trump truly cares about her or sees her as a human being, but rather as another conquest to fuel his unbridled ego throughout his rocky success. As soon as she shows more effectiveness in her work than he does in his, he is completely turned off sexually. Meanwhile, he’s gaining weight because he’s abusing pills (and, I’m serious, telling a doctor that exercise doesn’t help) and becomes violent every time she tries to stand up for herself.

If we delve deeper into Sebastian Stan’s performance, it doesn’t just work because of the transformation, which is pretty understated and not Saturday Night Live Sketch. The performance and The apprentice As a film, they succeed, albeit with little substance, because they create a frighteningly convincing portrayal of a man who turns into a monster and undergoes a gradual physical transformation that increasingly resembles modern-day Donald.

It’s unsettling to watch, clearly underpinned by a synthesized score by the team of Martin Dirkov, David Holmes and Brian Irvine, which at times seems to be directly inspired by Brian De Palma Scarface. This deliberate choice would make sense if only to remind us that in most films it’s fun to root for the overambitious, murderous antihero. That’s not the case here, as Sebastian Stan perfectly captures this heartless madman who later became everything Michael Shannon described.

Review of the flickering myth – Movie: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the editor of Flickering Myth Reviews. Check here for new reviews, follow mine Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at [email protected]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist