• Director: Ali Abbasi
• Screenplay: Gabriel Sherman
• Cast: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Martin Donovan, Maria Bakalova
• Cinematography: Kasper Tuxen
• Editing: Olivier Bugge Coutté, Olivia Neergaard-Holm
• Score: Martin Dirkov
• Genre: Biographical drama
• Runtime: 123 minutes

The timing of this biopic of the 45th POTUS couldn’t be more appropriate. With less than a month to go until election day, this warts-and-all biographical drama documents his rise to prominence in 1970s New York City under the wing of crooked lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). ‘The Apprentice‘ (also the name of Trump’s NBC reality series) shows us his human side (yes, he has one); his flaws, his vulnerabilities. He starts off as an outsider, not taken seriously but ruthlessly driven to succeed in the business world. You almost feel sorry for him. Almost. The movie doesn’t hold a particular political stance – we see his unsavoury attributes; his cold-heartedness, his sleaziness, his absolute disregard for his first wife Ivana. Orange man bad? Well…

Sebastian Stan gives a stellar performance as Donald J. Trump, one of the most famous people on the planet (the pressure to get it right must’ve been intense). While he could easily have done an ‘SNL‘ skit-style take on Trump (Alec Baldwin anyone?), Stan completely immerses himself in the role. There were times I genuinely thought I was watching Trump on the big screen and had to remind myself this was just acting. He’s got the voice, the hand gestures; it threw me off the instant he started speaking. Jeremy Strong is a solid supporting actor as the corrupt and downright evil Cohn, who is the Obi-Wan figure to Trump’s Luke Skywalker, teaching him to win at all costs.

It’s got the feeling of an extended episode of ‘Succession‘ (which Strong starred in too); the camera zooming in like a pseudo-documentary and razor-sharp lines of dialogue; the grainy 70s lens is a nice touch as well. Pseudo indeed – there’s a disclaimer at the start saying many of the events are fictitious (‘fake news’), presumably so Trump can’t sue the writers. He’ll call them a disgrace to screenwriting on Truth Social instead.

Will this sway the American voters in any way? Probably not, but it does make you consider the real person behind the larger-than-life persona. It’s worth noting that Trump’s legal team tried to block the film’s release so the makers had to distribute it through Briarcliff Entertainment, an independent production company.

My rating: 8 / 10