February 12, 2025

REAGAN (2024) – Flawed and bias piecemeal biopic lacking emotional depth

0

Rating: ⭐⭐

reagan

Here is another timely movie to catch while we are all still reveling in the US elections. Reagan is a biographical dramatization of Ronald Reagan, the Hollywood actor who became the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Watching this movie, one cannot help noticing a number of striking similarities Reagan had with Donald Trump. Reagan, a Republican won the election in 1980 in a landslide victory defeating the largely unpopular incumbent Democrat President Jimmy Carter. That victory was even more impressive than Trump’s where Reagan managed to get a resounding 489 electoral votes for the Republican party. Like Trump, Reagan also survived an assassination attempt, and he coined the phrase “Let’s Make America Great Again” for his campaign. His time as president became known as the Reagan Era where he successfully reduced inflation through tax cuts, implemented the “Star Wars” defense system and an improved relationship with the Soviet Union in his second term.

While Ronald Reagan is undoubtedly someone whose life and achievements is worthy of having a biopic made in honour of him, the movie itself sadly failed to live up to the task. The film felt disjointed and ends up like a mixed bag of events and snippets of his life’s highlights. The narration simply lacked any dramatic highlights to which there were many missed opportunities. The overall pacing was also poor which made me dose off several times. Given the scope of the life of Reagan, a more fitting format would have been a TV mini-series which would have allowed a more complete account of his life story. As a 140 mins movie, one gets the feeling that a lot of details have been left out. Very little is shown of his childhood and of his Hollywood days. It also had an obvious biasedness in its depiction of Reagan and he is painted in only a positive light with nary a fault in his character. This affected the authenticity of the film and makes one wonder about how much of it is historically accurate. History had documented that Reagan suffered from dementia on the later part of his presidency and his mental declined was showing by the end of his second term. This was totally left out of the narrative.

Dennis Quaid is one of my favourite actors, but I have to concede that his portrayal of Reagan did not stand out. While he might have looked the part, his portrayal felt like someone playing the role of Reagan rather than trying to convince you that he is indeed Reagan. He also looked uncomfortable squinting his face most of the time in an effort to look like Reagan. Penelope Ann Miller also did not get a chance to give us a memorable Mrs Reagan, Nancy, as she was simply not given enough screentime to make any impact. Her role was reduced to a rather one-dimensional soap opera-ish background character.

I can’t help thinking that this biopic could have been so much better under the hands of a different director or film makers. This comes across as pretty one sided, and definitely felt incomplete in its portrayal of a man whose life is indeed larger than life. Perhaps someday, we will get to see a more deserving, categorical and balanced representation of Ronald Reagan.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments