The Apprentice

This very well-made movie is still constructed that are wholly and completely gossamer.

It’s surprising and even a little disappointing that The Apprentice doesn’t go all in on the grotesque and extreme aspects of the Trumpian evolution. But it does show a side of the former US president that, you suspect, he would prefer not to be seen.

The film is a well-paced and often entertaining story of how Trump evolved from an insecure blustery young man into a still insecure and blustery older one, but someone with a greater grasp of how to manipulate others and egomaniacally impose himself.

The standout is Jeremy Strong who is utterly magnetic as Roy Cohn. It's a vampiric performance.

The Apprentice would have been a better movie had it featured such star power at its center—but better still would have been a movie that offered more insight into the nature of that power, whether in tabloids, in politics, or in movies themselves.

This is a solid film that's worth watching in the lead-up to the presidential election. The performances — of Stan, Strong and Bakalova — are first rate.

The Apprentice doesn't craft its tale with subtlety, but what exactly is the point of delicacy in a world where the rise of Donald Trump has destroyed the usefulness of subtlety, or really any kind of satire?

A portrait of a weak man, humorless and friendless, desperate to be liked, desperate to be seen as someone who *matters*. Sebastian Stan’s brilliantly disgusting Trump is horrifically riveting.

Despite having a lot to say about the past and present of American politics, the film never sacrifices entertainment for moralising. The Apprentice is a blast from start to finish, punctuated with some really emotional moments.

In creating sympathetic portraits of Trump and Cohn, The Apprentice can only become, by the end, a Hollywood biopic, with the oppressive blandness of the genre touched up as usual with movie-filtered period detail.