The Contender

When this film opened in theaters last fall I really wanted to see it. I love political thrillers, and this one looked great. Great concept, the Vice-President croaks and has to be replaced, but the nominee has to be confirmed by Congress. Of course there’s back room dealings and political machinations that follow, but ultimately, to quote Shakespeare, this film is "full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

Bridges is the second term Democratic President Jackson Evans, looking and sounding the part extremely well. His VP has died, and he needs a replacement, his first choice would have to be Senator Hathaway (William Petersen), a Gulf-War veteran and the popular choice. Oh and in the first scene of the film Hathaway attempts to be a hero and rescue a young woman who’s car goes off a bridge where the Senator just happens to be fishing under. Hathaway fails, and the woman dies. The President, and his counsel (a fantastic Sam Elliott) decide that the incident is too close to Chappaquidick (and if you don’t know what that is, boy you need to learn some history), and settle on Senator Laine Hansen from Ohio. President Evans wants to leave a legacy of being a maverick, so he wants a woman VEEP.

But according to the film, the Congress has to "advise and consent" the nominee. This is true, although according to the Constitution (the 25^th amendment, second paragraph), when there is a vacancy in the Vice-President’s office, the nominee simply is confirmed by a majority vote of both houses of the Congress. Gary Oldman plays the Chairman of the Congressional Judiciary Committee, who forms the panel to "advise and consent" Hansen, and he has a vendetta against the President for some past conflict that is never really explained. Not only does he not want to confirm Hansen, but he wants to discredit the President as well. He conspires with Senator Hathaway, and a junior congressional member played by Christian Slater, to dig deep into Hansen’s past to discredit her.

Hansen, it seems, is a distinguished senator, the daughter of the long serving Ohio Governor. They drop lines about separation between church and state, and other hot-topics, but ultimately, the politics appear hollow. Hansen’s father, the always interesting Phillip Baker Hall, is a Republican, but campaigned against prayer in school. Hansen herself started as a Republican, but switched parties before her election as a Senator. Oldman is a Republican, but never had children, and crusades against abortion, even though his wife had one. If anything, the politicians in this film come off appearing worse than most actors appear in real life.

In the final analysis, the conflicts in this piece aren’t really about anything other than appearances, which may be the truth in real politics, but we just don’t need to know that, do we? There’s a lot of sturm and dang, but nothing really amounting to anything, and finally, the good guys, if you can call them that, win, and the bad guys lose. Maybe they should have retitled this film "Ms. Smith Goes to Washington."

My rating ** out of 5.