Screens/Reviews

The Apprentice
Where: In theatres
What: Movie, 120 mins.
When: Now
Genre: Fact-based drama
Rating: NNN (out of 5)
Why you should watch: MAGA fans will delight in this slick telling of the rise of their hero while those fearing Donald Trump’s re-election could mean the end of democracy in the U.S. will cringe.

THE APPRENTICE IS entertaining, crisp filmmaking with a solid cast — and it leaves me feeling ill and squirming through much of the viewing as it humanizes one of the most destructive people in the world: Donald Trump.

It’s largely a riches-to-riches tale of an ambitious young man with a horrible father he aims to please and never can. It’s not until about 88 minutes in that Trump crosses from being a laughably un-self-aware, self-aggrandizing and needy doofus with a somewhat golden touch (or at least golden ambition) into a monster who rapes his wife, the glamourous Ivana Trump. Handsome Sebastian Stan, Bucky Barnes in the Captain America movies plays Trump like a superhero of capitalism with much of what he says in aggressively pursuing the “art of the deal” certain to resonate with MAGA fans today. With America on the precipice of possibly re-electing one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, it’s absolutely uncomfortable watching the seeds of a dictator planted and nurtured, often by Succession’s Jeremy Strong, superb as Roy Cohn, Trump’s ruthless mentor, the “father” he never had — and could finally please.

Trump looks visionary in the ’70s as he imagines a resurrected New York City, seeks to raise 42^nd Street from the ruins and squeezes massive tax breaks out of the city in the process. His supporters will cheer as he stiffs workers and grinds deals out of the city. The film moves into the capitalist utopia of the Reagan ’80s, capturing the high hair and higher expectations for anyone chasing the big-money game at a time when lack of morality was celebrated in the pursuit of the big payday. Second thoughts were for suckers, and Trump is proudly determined to never be one.

Any of Trump’s “questionable” behaviour in chasing his deals seems like little-boy indiscretions compared to the massive crimes and affronts to humanity that he commits today.

If you can stomach watching sex between Trump and his gorgeous (pre-rape) fiancée Ivana and snappy shots of him bouncing from limos to helicopters and private jets, this film’s for you. If you think he is a threat to the world as we know it, The Apprentice makes for a very uncomfortable watch. Personally, after viewing The Apprentice, I feel his grimy presence sticking to me like Cheetos dust on my fingers after munchie-chomping my way through a bag. Gross.