Who's in it? George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Evan Rachel Wood, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei
The plot Clooney is back in writer/director/starring mode here in this tale of absolute power and its ability to corrupt even the most moralistic of people, absolutely. George stars as Mike Morris, the Governor of Pennsylvania and a Democratic presidential candidate, who boasts Stephen Meyers (Gosling) as his go-getting junior campaign manager, helping him compete for the Democratic vote against Michael Mantell’s Arkansas Senator, Ted Pullman – himself aided by the wily senior campaign manager, Paul Zara (Hoffman).
Following a debate, the up-and-coming Meyers is approached by rival campaign manager, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), who offers him a position in Senator Pullman’s competing campaign, which Meyers turns down, saying he is loyal to Morris. All of which leads the cynical Duffy to warn fresh-faced young’un Meyers about the filthiness that is politics, telling him that Morris will soon prove to have the feet of clay so many politicians before him have had.
Meeting and falling for Molly Stearns (Wood), an intern working on Morris’s campaign – and the daughter of Jack Stearns (Gregory Itzin), the chairman of the Democratic National Committee – Meyers soon stumbles upon the unwelcome information that Molly is pregnant with Morris’s baby, and what follows is a Machiavellan tale of twists, turns, back-stabbing and uneasy alliances, as Zara and Duffy, along with New York Times investigative reporter, Ida Horowicz (Tomei), combine to teach the once idealistic Meyers what it’s really like to swim with the sharks.
Rating 4 out of 5
