Thursday, October 6, 2011

Ides of March ~ they call it “dirty politics” for a reason.



Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling) is the idea man for Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney) and his political campaign to secure the Democratic Nomination for President of the United States. Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is the man with the plan and Morris’ right hand man and Stephen’s boss. Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) is the manager for the other candidate Pullman’s campaign.

Stephen is great as his job and Tom wants him for the competition. Unfortunately, changing sides is quite the scandal and Stephen learns just taking the meeting with Tom might be the end of his career. What more could go wrong?

Enter Intern Molly Stearns (Evan Rachel Wood). Yes, I said intern, and yes, it’s exactly what you’re thinking. What do you do when you’re idealistic candidate falls from grace? What happens when your ideas of what politics is supposed to be about get destroyed by “dirty politics?”

This movie represents what I believe to be a true interpretation of politics. You enter it full of hope and ideas on how to change the world for the better, and the powers that be taint you, steal your soul, and change you, not the world.

Political thrillers tend to bore me, but this one didn’t. I believe this was a great display of Ryan Gosling talents, and he did just about a much driving as he did in “Drive” but the acting was so much better. There’s some Republican bashing, as was expected, and there’s a few real life bumper sticker speeches that you’ll probably hear echoed in the 2012 campaign, but you can get past it.

It was a thriller and there are surprising plot twist. It worth a look if political movies are your thing, or if you just want to look at Gosling and/or Clooney. 

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