Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story

TV Movie
2003
2h

IMDb RATING

4.5/10

894

YOUR RATING

James Woods in Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story (2003)

Biography Drama

A New York mayor tries to cut back the city's crime and social problems, all in the face of his own battle with cancer, the tragedy of the September 11th Attacks and his troubled marriage.A New York mayor tries to cut back the city's crime and social problems, all in the face of his own battle with cancer, the tragedy of the September 11th Attacks and his troubled marriage.A New York mayor tries to cut back the city's crime and social problems, all in the face of his own battle with cancer, the tragedy of the September 11th Attacks and his troubled marriage.

Director
- Robert Dornhelm
Writers
- Wayne Barrett
- Stanley Weiser
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

4.5/10

894

YOUR RATING

Director
- Robert Dornhelm
Writers
- Wayne Barrett
- Stanley Weiser
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 2 Primetime Emmys
- 2 wins & 3 nominations total

Trivia
Despite being credited, Stanley Weiser claims that his entire script was thrown out at the request of James Woods and replaced by one written by an uncredited Lionel Chetwynd, a well-known politically conservative screenwriter, to make it more pro-Giuliani.

Goofs
In the scene where Giuliani is telling his wife about going after the crime bosses, as she approaches, he lifts up the cigar in his left hand, but in the next shot, the hand with the cigar is back on the table and never lifts it up.

Quotes
Rudolph 'Rudy' Giuliani: You spend your whole life seeing and hearing about people dying. You just never think it will happen to you.

Connections
Featured in The 55th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (2003)

User reviews20

Review

Featured review

Well Done, realistic, but overdramatized Giuliani

Rudy is the TV film shown recently on USA starring James Woods as Rudolph Giuliani. It begins on September 10th, 2001 and then when the tragedy hits we go to flashbacks starting in 1982 when Rudy was associate Attorney General. The back and forth between the present (September 11th) and his past is a hard to pull off editing job that works well.

The 911 scenes go back and forth between actual footage Woods' portrayal, which again is effective and realistic. To his credit Woods didn't try to assume the mannerisms of Rudy too much so avoided the danger of lapsing into parody, but rather played the role as intense high drama...which wasn't exactly appropriate to Rudy's more low key reality.

Other flashbacks we get are 1984 when he's the US Attorney in New York who cracks down on the Mafia, 1989 when he loses the Mayoral race to Dinkins, 1992 when he grandstands for racist cops, 1993 when he wins the Mayoral election, as well as his marriage and his 2 extramarital relationships.

Overall a sympathetic portrayal of 2 decades of public office which of course culminates in 911, which is really what most of the film appropriately points towards. You will come away respecting Rudy if perhaps not agreeing with him.

Finally it's significant that James Woods got this role, as he noticed the highjackers on previous "test flights" and he reported his suspicions to the flight attendant. He reported it to the FBI post-911 and they confirmed they were the highjackers on his flight.