Primary Colors (1998)
This starts off really great, and gets the flavor of a real campaign, without too much Hollywood hype (campaigns have their own kind of falseness, which is played up here). John Travolta not only hits it just right as a feeling and determined candidate, he also nails Bill Clinton pretty well, too. I don't suppose Emma Thompson is supposed to match Hillary quite as well, but she's a perfect running mate, and throw in Billy Bob (Thornton) as a sidekick and you have a really solid working trio.
But it doesn't quite keep the focus or momentum, or honesty, of the opening scenes. Or humor, sometimes. (This is a comedy, by the way, and director Mike Nichols knows comedy, as does his screenwriter and longtime collaborator, Elaine May. They used to do stand up comedy together in the 1950s!)
What begins as a kind of revelation and interior exploration digresses into more and more clichés of what campaigns do, and what they have to do (sleaze wise) to succeed. We know this stuff. It isn't the facts that enchant us, it's the exceptions to the facts, and it's the nuances between them. It never quite flags, though twenty minutes less screen time sounded good by the end. And Travolta and Thompson hold up their roles consistently.
The real saving grace in the second half is the bursting on the scene of Kathy Bates, who is herself at her best. It might be the best Kathy Bates Kathy Bates has ever done, including some impassioned, tearful stuff. The opposing candidate is remarkably convincing--you even want to vote for him--played by Larry Hagman. On the other hand, the young clerk and campaign manager Adrian Lester is a bit too restrained and dull to make him even noticeable.
Nichols is best when he gets two or three or four people interacting as real people, with flaws and intensity and passion (as in "The Graduate" and "Closer"). And those moments here are terrific, and sometimes hilarious, and make the rest easily worthwhile.
