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User Reviews for: LBJ

drqshadow
4/10  5 months ago
Under a heavy set of liver-spotted prosthetics, Woody Harrelson portrays the 36th President. Once an effective Senate majority leader, Lyndon Johnson was wrangled into a toothless role as Kennedy’s strategic running mate in 1961. Soon derided by the cabinet and dismissed by the President, he was effectively neutered by the promotion until an assassin’s bullet catapulted him into the country’s most powerful position. _LBJ_ examines the Texas politician’s backroom deals, his personal uncertainties, his rocky relationship with the Kennedy brothers and his determination to see his predecessor’s signature civil rights legislation through to the finish line.

Plenty of meat on the bone for a good political biography there, especially as Johnson had such a notoriously colorful personality, but this one comes up short. Harrelson is a total mismatch for the leading role, all southern drawl and no charismatic magnetism, but he’s not even the film’s worst fit. Richard Jenkins plays JFK like a bad imitation on open mic night, his characteristic Boston accent faked in all the worst ways, while Michael Stahl-David’s depiction of a young Bobby Kennedy looks and acts like a cocky James Franco. Johnson’s private disagreements with RFK are well-documented, and that icy tension fuels most of this dramatization, but Bobby’s character in _LBJ_ is awfully one-sided. In short, he’s a total dick. A raging, manipulative foil for Johnson’s well-intentioned good ol’ boy. Animosity is usually a two-way street, but we never see anything like that from Lyndon.

I’m not entirely convinced this wasn’t a simple _Funny or Die_ sketch that spiraled way out of control. Johnson’s famous leaked phone call with a tailor shop (the one where he belches and rambles on about his bunghole) is here in its entirety, as is a riotous scene in which he dictates bureaucratic business from the toilet. Those certainly lend some extra tread to his character’s rough edges, not to mention lightening the narrative, but both scenes linger, awkwardly, to the point of obsession. An entertaining film, no doubt about it, but not for the reasons that I suspect director Rob Reiner intended.
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