Reagan (2024) - Movie Review - A non-political POV

Reagan is directed by Sha mcnam and stars Dennis Quaid as the 40th President of the United States the movie is narrated by a former KGB agent played by John void and the movie articles Reagan's life from his early life through his time as a state senator the governor of California and both terms of his presidency I'm going to talk about this movie the same way I viewed Oliver Stones Nixon from 1995 this movie is controversial to review because that's what we do now as a society we draw lines in the sand and if we don't agree with someone we are labeled as something that we likely are not I'm going to approach this movie as an art piece and try and stay away from all the noise that will undoubtedly come from those mouthpieces I'm here to tell you if the movie is good or not the movie is based on the book The crusador by Paul kangor which I have not read but movies that are adapted from books should be viewed as their own art piece instead of a companion the movie begins in the present day with John Boy's character talking with someone about why they were unable to spread communism to the United States the rest of the movie is told through his narration then there are short scenes showing a brief glimpse of Reagan's early years as a young man he was a lifeguard but his childhood is barely touched on the meat of the first half of the movie is as time as the head of the Screen Actor Guild and meeting his future wife Nancy played by Penelope Anne Miller they only show his military service very briefly and not much of it is followed up on Reagan's first wife is played by Mina suari and the movie shows the two of them starring in a movie together briefly then shows that they are living the good life in Hollywood the couple divorces after the sad passing of one of their children in 1947 and Rod meets Nancy during a meeting between them which was arranged by Nancy because she saw her name on the Hollywood Black List they meet for dinner shortly thereafter and then are seen riding horses and then they're married I'm being this broad stroked because this movie is that broad stroked there isn't an engine driving this relationship and it shows the film is your basic 1940s love story that has no Stakes to it nor does it have any conflicts between the two the movie is telling us that they met fell in love and that's the end if you want a basic love story then I'm sure people will appreciate this you see Ronald throughout the entire movie as this man who is locked in on stopping the USSR and nothing else his mother passes away and we have 132 scene where he visits her thanks the Lord for her existence and then on to the next thing the movie then briefly follows his time as governor of California but it's only shown in Quick newsreel Cuts with things that were happening in the world at the time such as the Cuban Missile Crisis the only time that it really stops for drama is when a couple of hippie sleep out on Reagan's lawn and he befriends one of them the film slightly Chronicles his first run for president in 1976 when he was defeated by Gerald Ford then the movie shows him at home watching President Carter speak and there's a brief conversation between husband and wife where he expresses his desire to run for president again after ran wins the rest of the movie is spent covering his entire eight years in office if I sound like I am Loosely talking about the life of Ronald Reagan it's because the movie doesn't tell me anything more than that and that's one of the biggest failings of this film to me there's so much fronting and almost no showing the movie seemingly wants to tell us that Ronald Reagan's only driving forces in the world were his wife his horseback riding and stopping the Soviet Union I could go beat for beat on what else is in this movie but I think you get the general idea this film doesn't tell us anything that we couldn't learn from a quick search on Wikipedia there's no passion here Dennis Quaid does a respectable job as the title character he seems to have the voice down well and the known mannerisms of Reagan seem to be respected but we never get to know anything about this man what drives him how does he feel about his apparent bad relationship with his father why did his relationship with his first wife end why do we almost never see any of his children the movie doesn't seem concerned with answering any of these questions and just assumes that you did your homework and and would know who tip O'Neal is among many many other things that's fine for people who remember their history classes through middle school but when this film is showed 100 years from now what is it going to tell these people about who Ronald Reagan was the reason that other biopics such as Nixon Ray and Oppenheimer work so well is because they give us insight into all those real life people they aren't afraid to show those characters in vulnerable States conflicted on feelings are overcoming some sort of trepidation this movie tells us how to feel at all times throughout through voiceover narration music cues and other generic methods that have been done in many other better movies I believe that everyone enjoyed this movie but it comes off as a vanity project with no message that it's trying to formulate except that this is a great man and we should love him for ending communism without ever showing us who the man really was the movie also omits so much no material from its story they do show a brief aftermath of the attempt on his life the friend ofy he had with tip O'Neal but it doesn't touch on many things that Reagan was President during such as the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and the War on Drugs if the makers of this film are going to create a biopic about Ronald Reagan then they have to have the guts to talk about the less flattering things as well someone played Frank Sinatra in this movie but it does such a poor job of identifying that you would never know it was Sinatra unless you read it that is out of the movie research required to understand who a character is and I have zero patience for that kind of writing the film is shot acceptably well but for a movie that is going for an epic biopic it is shot with many close-ups medium shots and not very many long shots to give us the scope of how big the places are that these characters are inhabiting when they show his inauguration speech in 1981 there's next to no one behind behind him and they never pan out to show a crowd the movie looks like very small scope but it wants to feel large the daging effects don't look that great either John vo's character is shown over 40 years but it just looks like the actor never aged day except for his hair color and the fact that he had a beard when he was younger there are also some scenes where they have Dennis Quaid as Reagan interacting with people that are obviously spliced in through public footage such as Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale and it looks very uncanny but thankfully they don't Linger on the shots for long except for the decent acting by the Reagan couple this movie is really bad from an artistic perspective and it looks like a movie that is made only to try and be uplifting but the problem with that is that since we live in a world where information is so common place and just a few key strokes away we can't be uplifted unless you show our hero conflicted in some way one of the reasons a hero is liked in a story is because we see them persevere despite many setbacks we see them go through if you tell us that we're supposed to just accept someone and like them I feel plated to and that's where a movie loses me if you just show a biopic without ever showing what really transpired or on a fairy tale level even you don't show our hero struggling and fighting from underneath then we don't care about him this movie is a love letter to our 40th president so I'm sure some people will appreciate that but as an accurate retelling of who Ronald Reagan was I think this movie completely fails see I can study an art piece and just grade it as an art piece not worrying about talking points messaging or telling people how they should feel unlike this guy one of the biggest sins that a movie can commit to me is being boring and that's what I thought throughout this entire film's runtime boredom the the movie is bad on an artistic level and incomprehensible on a historical accuracy level it doesn't have any weight of the biopics I mentioned earlier and it doesn't have as much realism as the movie Dave starring Kevin Klein it's a soft cloudy story and nothing more I give Reagan one star and a golden turkey thanks so much for watching everyone look for more reviews soon and until next time I am ghost