Competently made but barely scratches the thematic surface

Based on the non-fiction book All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid (2014) by Matt Bai, written for the screen by Bai, Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking; Juno; Tully) , and Jay Carson (Hilary Clinton's former press secretary), and directed by Reitman, The Front Runner tells the story of Colorado senator Gary Hart's doomed 1988 presidential campaign. The most likely candidate to win the Democratic nomination, Hart's reputation was shattered when a Miami Herald story accused him of an extramarital affair, and only three weeks into his campaign, he withdrew from the race. The film presents the events of those weeks as a seismic turning-point; when political journalism and tabloid sensationalism irrevocably fused, when private scandal became just as important to the American public as political acumen, perhaps even moreso. Aspiring to the kind of multi-character canvas of Robert Altman or early Paul Thomas Anderson, The Front Runner recalls Altman's 1988 miniseries, Tanner '88. However, it spreads itself far too thin, trying to take on the perspective of a plethora of characters, yet telling us very little about any of them, least of all Hart himself. And in the end, it fails to work as either a darkly satirical examination of the Hart scandal, or as a socio-political critique of the current constitutional environment in the US.

For my complete review, please visit: https://boxd.it/Cpull