The Front Runner, based on the book by Matt Bai - 9 out of 10

The Front Runner, based on the book by Matt Bai
9 out of 10


For this cinephile, The Front Runner is much better Oscar material than both Black Panther and A Star is Born.

The performances are solid, excellent all around, with everyone in better form than the singer who used to wear dresses made of meat and is now the "revelation" of the acting world...

Give me a break.

The Front Runner is not just telling us a very interesting story, raising questions about ethics, the standard that politicians should use, private versus public life, morals and more.
It is a fantastic motion picture in that it invites comparison with the present and the awful
, incredible behavior of a candidate that now sits in the White House, in spite of his abject acts.

Hugh Jackman - not one of my favorite actors - gives a remarkable performance- better than Bradley Cooper in the Star is Born - in the role of Gary Hart aka The Front Runner.
The Senator is the favorite to win the elections in 1988.

He certainly had a different stature from Trump, an intellect that would make him Aristotle and the sitting president a boy of seven - anyway, he frequently acts like one.
Many, if not most viewers will look at the film and wonder how is it possible to experience such a downfall.

To have the choice in 1988 to elect a man with a vision, brilliant mind, courage, intellect, knowledge, experience in office and then almost thirty years later to descend to making a buffoon the leader of the free world.
It is even more incredible when we consider the change in attitudes.

There is suspicion that the candidate has an affair and when he says that the public is not interested- a fact seemingly confirmed by opinion polls - his advisers protest.
One of them states that this is not the seventies and attitudes have changed.

In other words, the flower power culture, the relaxed hippy attitude towards sex and other factors have changed.
People in America are less tolerant in 1988.

How about in 2016 then?
Is it possible to elect such a narcissistic, abusive sexist who brags about grabbing pussies and walking into rooms where teenagers are undressed at pageants that he controls?

The appalling answer is evident on the cable news, where he shows almost daily with another insult, abuse, calamitous lie, indecent proposal...the smartest mani America...

In contrast, The Front Runner of this film is a luminary, an Einstein and an absolute ascetic figure.
No matter what he did or didn't in the room with the attractive woman.

The press gets hold of the information and sets On catching the candidate, if possible in the act.
They are encouraged by the fact that Senator Hart has said in an interview that if the journalist does not believe him, he should follow him around.

The photographer brought in front of the house is able to take some compromising pictures.
Nevertheless, the candidate feels this is the private realm and it is not the business of the press, indeed of anybody, what he does in his bedroom.

If we take this ironically, in an absurd manner, Gary Hart was vindicated in 2016, when Trump won, after manifesting a disgraceful lack of character, respect for women and his voters could not care less.
In his own words...

Trump could shoot someone and his base would still support him...

Bill Maher was joking on his show...

"What does he have to do? Use the Eternal Flame to light farts?" For his voters to see him for what he is?

Having said all this, Gary Hart was not an Angel.
Well, only if we compare him with Orange Satan, elected by evangelicals no less.

He should have applied a different moral standard.
His wife tells him she thinks she would divorce him at a later stage, after his infidelity becomes public.

Perhaps paradoxically, they are still married, after all those years.
Their daughter is exposed to the scandal.

Their home is surrounded by a multitude of television trucks, reporters, satellite installations and all these people create a mountain of garbage.
The daughter has to leave the house in the back of the car of an employee, hidden under a blanket, like a criminal.

The demands on The Front Runner should have been great.
He could have become the president, with a flawed, wicked character.

The problem is that many years later, instead of progress, the once Greatest Democracy in the World became a lamentable case study of ridiculous, catastrophic results...
Trump against Gary Hart is like Stalin compared with Churchill.

Yes, the latter had many important flaws - to mention just one, he thought India should remain a part of the British Empire - but he was one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known.