Sean McNamara’s biopic Reagan moves well beyond hero worship, as it paints the 40th U.S. president as a saint among men. The film opens with Ronald Reagan (Dennis Quaid) quoting his mother via voiceover—“Everything, even seemingly random twists of fate, is all a part of the divine plan”—just as it cuts to a vision of John Hinckley Jr.’s 1981 attempted assassination of the president. The mix of slow-mo re-enactment and archival footage is the first of many bizarre, unintentionally funny moments in a film that’s determined not only to position Reagan as the great man of the second half of the 20th century, but as a man ordained by God to defeat the colossal, religion- and freedom-hating villain of our times: communism.
In an especially strange decision, the story of Reagan’s life is told from the perspective of a fictionalized KGB agent, Victor Novikov (Jon Voight), who amusingly shares the same name as a Russian oligarch target from the video game Hitman 2. In the present day, Novikov regales a young Russian agent (Alex Sparrow) who wonders how the U.S.S.R. lost the Cold War with tales of Reagan’s personal and political history, presenting him not merely as an admirable adversary, but a near-invincible foe who earned the initially sarcastic nickname “The Crusader.”
Reagan was inspired by Paul Kengor’s 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, though the ever-present Christian overtones suggest the filmmakers also drew from Kengor’s book from the year before, God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life. A focus on Reagan’s spirituality could have been at least somewhat compelling were it presented with any complexity or depth. But, as the film is written by Howard Klausner, co-screenwriter of Michael Mason’s risible Christian drama God’s Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness from 2018, it’s unsurprising that Reagan doesn’t so much interrogate its subject’s faith as bludgeon the audience with the notion that it was the defining force behind his success and greatness.
Throughout, people remind Reagan that he serves God, with certain comments, such as when his mother tells him that “God has purpose for your life, something only you can do,” outright deifying him. To be fair, the Russians are no less one-dimensionally imagined—strategically infiltrating Hollywood and the labor unions as a means to destroy God and freedom, both of which the film obtusely sees as completely synonymous with America. It’s no surprise, then, that every Russian but Mikael Gorbechev is presented as pernicious and heartless.
Far more troubling than the comically villainous portrait of Russia is the film’s relentlessly condescending, duplicitous vision of Reagan’s detractors over the years. University of California, Berkeley protesters in 1969 are depicted as whiny brats emboldened by a weak, naïve, and idealistic faculty and administration. Even more offensive and distasteful than that is the film’s playing of Ronnie’s “shhh” to the silent protestors as a joke, only to skip over the one death and 128 hospitalizations that resulted from his sending in the National Guard soon after.
Every pro-union liberal in McNamara’s film is shown as an unthinking, freedom-hating Russian puppet willing to turn violent whenever they don’t get their way. And each politician and member of the press calling for accountability in the Iran–Contra affair is driven not by a sense of morality or justice, but a bloodthirsty desire to destroy Reagan’s career.
Even if it’s only to present Reagan as an unwitting victim, that the scandal is mentioned at all is shocking, given the sheer number of other contentious issues that defined his presidency that are overlooked. There’s no mention of the War on Drugs and, in a fittingly ironic tribute to the Reagan administration’s silence and inaction during one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, the film stays mum on the AIDS crisis. As for trickle-down economics, the film’s puerile position is summed up when Ronnie offers up a choice bit of charming, folksy wisdom: “If the good lord only asks for 10%, why should Uncle Sam ask for any more?”
It’s not only Reagan’s belligerently hamfisted, disingenuous, and incurious treatment of its subject, and the sociopolitical realities that he lived through, that makes it so excruciating. It’s also the unwavering smugness with which it presents its warped vision of reality as fact, along with the utter contempt it shows for anyone who wasn’t completely in Reagan’s corner.
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excellent review
Hey look, Kevin Sorbo got a job! good for him!
Welcome to the Hollywood anti-Christian Media, Derek. It’s easy to see your attitude in your reviews. Let’s see how it does at the box office.
Anti-Christian by what definition, exactly? The one where you and other Republicans decide for everyone that God and Jesus believed all the poor people should toil for the rich without recourse and war-mongering imperialism is charitable goodwill toward our fellow man/woman?
Democrats will always have their issues, long as they abide by capitalism. But Republicans are now and forever the kings of hypocrisy.
What’s Christian about lying to yourself and trying to fool everyone you meet? Isn’t it supposedly the Devil who always lies? (I guess you have more in common with the enemy you claim than you realize.)
The fact it comes from someone responsible for a God’s Not Dead movie makes more sense and tells you everything you need to know (and somewhat ironically, we’re getting another one of those movies soon, this time one propaganda for intertwining religion and politics). Just from the poster alone I knew what this would be. Another, less heated review said the film glosses over any controversy and only briefly touches on the things he’s well hated for by critics, including shuttering mental health facilities, the way he dealt with the AIDS crises, and the Iran-Contra Affair. It’s timing for release certainly doesn’t seem coincidental to me.
It’s entertaining to see the panic over a movie like this, from leftist critics, who apparently imagine that their own approved narratives and people do not get their own hagiographic treatments. Hollywood made films extolling Joe Stalin, for crying out loud, and generally has avoided any stories exposing the real evils of the old Soviet Union. Biopics tend to be propaganda, so here is one for the minority perspectives. Take a deep breath.
If only you could entertain others as much as you are entertained by people you can’t take at face value because it wrinkles your pathetically fragile, convenience-based Daddy’s Darling politics.
In other words you will be voting for the giggler right?
Better than a rapist.
Hon, it’s not even January and people admitting they voted for him are already dreading what he’s going to do to the economy. In mere weeks, he will be the most unpopular President in the history of the United States.
3 months later and your comment hasn’t aged well. Has it?
I could care less about the content of this review, or who wrote it, as my interest lies with facts. If there’s one person that we can point our finger at, yes BLAME for the homeless problem and the many,many mentally ill people who roam the streets of Amerika today, it’s Reagan of course. RR decided that we don’t need to spend any tax dollars on mentally ill people, so he closed the mental institutions to save a buck. Although we do have mental institutions in this country, it’s that they are now called PRISONS. Burn In Hell Reagan!!!!!
Lol, trolls who have never been to this site before popping up on here, on the lookout for any negative reviews about ol’ Ronny’s “biopic.”
This was an excellent movie and an absolutely ridiculous review. I just saw it today. Accurate and excellent depiction of the best president of the 20th century by Dennis Quaid. Loved it.
Some people in America genuinely are made of cardboard. Your idea of quality in art is measured by how much it flatters a misanthropic, rubbery, decrepit, ugly bigot.
So it’s ok to call President Trump a rapist but you can’t ask how long the Giggler knew Corn Pop Joe was demented and is that elderly abuse right? You liberals are a bunch of hypocrites. November 5 2024 is the day President Trump wins back the presidency.
the two acts are nowhere near equal , rape vs not exposing your bosses declining cognition. you’re really unequipped for life if those are compatible acts. i things get better for you
Corn Pops are delicious. Why would you compare Biden to Corn Pops, especially if you disapprove of him?
from your mouth to God’s ear