Rent The Apprentice (2024)

Fascinating & Timely Film about Donald Trump from early 1970s to late 80s - The Apprentice review by PV

The director of this did BORDER - a brilliant film 5 stars - and the woeful computer game TV series/movie THE LAST OF US. So I did not know what to expect.

The screenwriter has form writing about Murdoch and big media players like Fox News, so that is the same highpowered media/money world.

I was at times amazed they got away with some scenes - especially with the litigious Trump team. BUT maybe such scenes are already in the public domain in biographies and memoirs etc, maybe from the ex wife Ivana?

The actors are great - very hard to portray such a famous face well as viewers will always compare BUT I believed this portrayal of the young Trump, in his twenties mostly, learning from the odious Roy Cohn (lawyer who worked when young with McCarthy in the 1950s red menace purges). The three rules here and how much the young learned from Cohn seem relevant and timely to today and the dealmaker Trump's MO. Jeremy Strong as Cohn is superb, the star of this film.

What I hated was the very weird supposedly Scottish accent of Trump's mum. And some phrases that were not around 50 years ago (think out of the box; he's spicy etc).

But all in all this Canadian-Irish coproduction is a decent film on Trump's formative years in business and made me want to know more about his family, esp his older brother (an alcoholic who ended up as a handyman working for his younger brother in their properties).

This is a solid, entertaining, watchable, timely film about the new (again) president of the USA.

4 stars.

The making of Donald Trump at the heart of an interesting film - The Apprentice review by Philip in Paradiso

The film is about what one could call the formative years of Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan), when he became the man that he is today. In that sense, it is a biographical and semi-fictionalized account of D Trump's life, when he was a young man starting off in real estate. The movie begins in 1973, when the family firm is going through a difficult time: the US federal government is investigating his father, the authoritarian Fred Trump, for alleged discrimination against black tenants, as part of the properties that the Trump family rents out. This has the potential to bankrupt the Trump real-estate business and worries Donald Trump greatly: he is working in his father's business. In a trendy bar, D Trump meets Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). Cohn is an utterly ruthless but very effective and successful lawyer, who decides to help D Trump and becomes, in a way, his mentor. Cohn is not averse to using underhand tactics and has worked with Mafia gangsters in the past, hence his mixed reputation. The film develops from that point onwards.

What the film does is explore the psychological and professional development of Donald Trump, but it does more than that: to a large extent, at the heart of the movie, actually, is the relationship between D Trump and R Cohn, which is complex and which changes over time. It is that relationship that underpins the film and, up to a point, it is J Strong who steals the show, as R Cohn turns out to be a compelling character whose own fate ends up being as important to the plot as that of D Trump's.

The film seems very realistic and does not pull its punches when describing D Trump, his narcissistic and materialistic arrogance and his lack of scruples. It is no surprise that the real Donald Trump, now president of the USA, found the movie repellent and unfair. However, the way that D Trump is portrayed is also, to a certain extent, sympathetic, if only superficially: he appears vulnerable and merely human in more ways than one. This makes the film more interesting. I would not say it is a masterpiece, on the other hand: it lacks some dramatic tension, perhaps, or it is simply that it is difficult to identify with any of the characters in the movie, as they are, by and large, vain, greedy and unprincipled. Still, a very good film.

A footnote: I found the colour in the film smudgy and sepia-like, presumably a deliberate attempt at situating the film firmly in the 1970s and 1980s; also, the sound is not always that good, making it not so easy to follow parts of the dialogues fully.

An interesting insight into what made Trump what he is today. - The Apprentice review by Darius

An interesting and chilling biopic, setting out the influences on Trump and what made him into the person the world knows today. A keen desire to impress his father and fulfil his expectations of him was clearly one of these. But undoubtedly the main influence was Roy Cohn and his three rules - attack, attack, attack, deny everything and always claim victory - never admit defeat. Trump's refusal to accept his 2020 election defeat and his supporters' attack on the Capitol can obviously be seen in the context of these "rules". It tells you everything that this movie is apparently unavailable in the US.