The Candidate (1972)

Een idealist wordt bepraat om zich kandidaat te stellen voor de senaat. Hij wil een zo eerlijk mogelijke campagne voeren, maar krijgt hij daar ook de gelegenheid toe?

Set MovieMeter.nl as default synopis Visit MM

Michael Ritchie once again shows his impressive ability to tackle new genres, after DOWNHILL RACER and PRIME CUT, with THE CANDIDATE, a scathing depiction of the hypocrisy and complexity in the American political world.

Bill McKay (Robert Redford), an idealistic young lawyer and son of a famous governor, is pressured into running for the United States Senate against the popular incumbent, with the assurance that he will lose and not have to give up his integrity or ideals. However, as the campaign deepens, he finds himself giving in, allowing himself to be manipulated as the polls slowly change and sw...
Read more

ing in his favor. Soon his backers decide that they want him to win after all. By the time Election Day arrives, McKay has become the person that he used to speak so vehemently against. Working from an Oscar-winning script by former Eugene McCarthy speechwriter Jeremy Larner, Ritchie films THE CANDIDATE with a heavy dose of semi-documentary realism that makes for an emotionally impacting experience.
Read less..

Set jinni.com as default synopis Visit jinni.com

"What do we do now?" Director Michael Ritchie and executive producer/star Robert Redford satirically explore the machinations and manipulations of media-age political campaigns in this cynical political drama. Rumpled left-wing California lawyer Bill McKay (Redford), the son of a former governor (Melvyn Douglas), is enlisted by campaign maestro Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle) to challenge Republican incumbent Crocker Jarmon (Don Porter) for his Senate seat. McKay agrees, but only if he can say exactly what he thinks. That approach is all well and good when McKay does not seem to have a chance, but things change when h...
Read more

is honesty unexpectedly captivates the electorate. As McKay inches up in the polls, Lucas and company start to do what it takes to win, leaving McKay to ponder the consequences of his political seduction. Working without studio interference from a script by Jeremy Larner, a speechwriter for 1968 Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, Ritchie enhanced the behind-the-scenes realism of Larner's insights with a realistic, cinéma vérité approach. He orchestrated a campaign parade for "candidate" Redford that drew such a considerable unstaged audience that local politicians wanted to draft Redford for a real election. Redford's resemblance to the telegenic Kennedys, and his character's resonance with the future career of California governor Jerry Brown, only emphasized how close to the bone The Candidate was (and is). Released the fateful year of Richard Nixon's reelection, the film garnered accolades, if not substantial box office; Larner won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and thanked the "politicians of our time" for inspiration. Creating a documentary fiction about the semi-truths manufactured to market a candidate, The Candidate shrewdly exposed the effects of the media on the increasingly cynical political process, posing unanswerable questions that have become all the more pressing with every soundbite-ruled election.
Read less..

Set AllMovie.com as default synopis Visit AM