Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

The Contender (2000)

Director: Rod Lurie

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

President Evans (Bridges) needs to appoint a new VP. Aware of the importance of the women's vote, he favours Democrat Senator Hanson (Allen) over Governor Hathaway (Petersen), recently in the news as a heroic would-be lifesaver and himself preferred by Republican congressman Runyon (Oldman). Investigating Hanson's suitability, Runyon obtains photos suggestive of a sexually scandalous past; but insisting on her right to privacy, she refuses to dignify the charge with a denial, thereby setting the scene for all manner of mud-slinging, murky deals and Machiavellian scheming. In the final reels story and characters start turning somersaults so that Hanson and Evans suddenly end up too good to be true, with Runyon a mere villain. This facile endorsement of Clintonian peccadillos is emphasised by some awful sermonising and an embarrassingly heroic score. Until then, however, the performances by a superb cast are uniformly terrific, and the writing is mostly sharp, witty and admirably sceptical about the manoeuvring on all sides.

Author: GA 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Rod Lurie

Producer: Marc Frydman, Douglas Urbanski, Willi Baer, James Spies

Cast: Gary Oldman, Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges, Christian Slater, Sam Elliott, William Petersen, Saul Rubinek, Philip Baker Hall, Mariel Hemingway full cast

Duration: 126 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.