Directed by Ali Abbasi
The Apprentice kicks off like it snorted a line of Wall Street coke and crashed headfirst into a strip club. It launches with the indefinite promise that it might be a fun & wild ride. And for a while, it is. We meet Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan, the hairpiece is basically parody) as a wannabe real estate tycoon, desperate to eek out some space outside the shadow of his father (Martin Donovan) and make a name for himself based on advice from lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong, who seemingly swallowed 8 tons of gravel to transform his voice for the role).
THE PLOT
Strong described the film as “not a farce, it’s not a cartoon” but rather an attempt to “hold a mirror up to this world and these individuals and try to understand how we got here.” I’m not sure if that landed.
From the jump, we watch Cohn mold the eager Trump. He has three rules: “One, attack, attack, attack. Two, admit nothing, deny everything. Three, no mater what happens, no matter they say about you, no matter how beaten you are, you claim victory and never admit defeat.” Trump eats it up. We watch him lay the groundwork for what will become his signature brand of sleaze. There are lot of scenes where he’s just fixing his hair.
There are moments of sharp but strange satire (?) — the blackmail evidence chamber; the crazy “God bless America” party chant that collapses into drunken nonsense and a gay orgy while Trump awkwardly sips his drink and observes.
The narrative stalls after Trump meets Ivana, and while his obsessive courtship leans hard into cringe (shoutout to the flower stunt that reads more like a red flag than romance, but maybe I’m just cynical), the film fails to maintain momentum.
Stan nailed the mannerisms and the vocal intonations, but the performance was hindered by script and story.
THE PACE
Seriously, could this movie have movie-d any slower?
The Apprentice starts as a fast-talking, semi-interesting origin story — but by the end, it’s limping. Whether that’s due to personal taste or poor design is up for debate. Either way, by the final act, I was more interested in Roy’s frog collection than anything Donald was up to and was definitely googling on my phone instead of paying full attention.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Strong deserved his nominations this awards season, but the film itself was a dud. I’m a longtime Sebastian Stan stan (I’m talking Carter Baizen from Gossip Girl history, here), and even I just couldn’t be won over by this one. The vocalization was spot-on, the hair was hilarious, but the pacing dragged and the story just wasn’t interesting. There’s not much else to say.
this movie is bad.
My rating: 2/5
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