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Description: When the truth becomes a weapon, power comes at a stunning price. Gary Oldman, Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and Christian Slater deliver electrifying performances in this controversial, suspenseful and critically-acclaimed thriller that Ebert & Roeper and the Movies call "exciting and unusually intelligent, two very enthusiastic thumbs up!" Sometimes you can assassinate a leader without firing a shot. Amazon.com essential video: Depending on your perspective, The Contender can be praised and damned for the same reasons. A political thriller with an insider's view, it's deadly earnest in its defense of truth, justice, and the American way, but writer-director (and former film critic) Rod Lurie resorts to the same manipulation that his film purports to condemn. But with political savvy, a timely idea (a female vice president), and a cast of first-rate actors, this high-office chess game is unabashedly entertaining. You can argue with Lurie's tactics, but you can't fault his patriotic passion. In a role written especially for her, Joan Allen is outstanding (if a bit too saintly) as the Republican-turned-Democrat senator who is chosen by the president (Jeff Bridges) to fill a vice presidential vacancy. Bridges is a cagey chief executive, seemingly aloof as he gleefully challenges the White House's 24-hour kitchen staff but more than a match for the embittered and unscrupulous congressman (Gary Oldman) who plots to destroy Allen's character with seemingly dark secrets from her past. As a gender-switching response to the Lewinsky scandal, The Contender asks potent questions with its impassioned plea for integrity in public service. That makes this a film well worth defending, and the stellar cast (which includes Christian Slater and William Petersen) triumphs over most of the plot's hokey machinations. The ideas are more compelling than their execution, however, and although Lurie's climactic revelation is a vast improvement over the reckless cheat of his previous film Deterrence, it still threatens to tarnish the gloss of an otherwise fascinating film. --Jeff Shannon Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-22
Campaign 2008
I guess this came out in 01, but watching it in 2008 is interesting, now that Hillary Clinton's campaign is over. This film is over the top in portraying partisanship, and way too preachy about the main character's rights as a woman to be treated like a man. Jeff Bridges is entertaining as the president. Hell, he should probably run. Given recent history like the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings, and such fiascos as the Bush nomination of Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court, the goings on in this movie are not entirely implausible. Rating: 
Date: 2008-01-09
Rich Cast and Story
This was a really good movie. The casting was just perfect (even Christian Slater who was the weakest of the selections). I found the story very interesting and the performances were fantastic. I recommend it to any intelligent film fan. Rating: 
Date: 2007-12-04
No one can stop history
Rush to your DVD store and get this film at once. It is a duty, a must, a compulsory mandatory obligation for any free citizen in this world to watch this film, at least twice to recognize the mugs and the characters and understand all the allusions. Launched in 2000 to prepare Al Gore's presidency, it came too early because Russia is not the only country where elections are manipulated to paint up the result some want though they have no right to get it. The film is perfect in the present situation if you believe in democracy, the Shrine of Democracy in Mount Rushmore that any political assembly, caucus, council, committee must - not should, I said must - be in a democratic country. If you believe in the right for every and each citizen to decide on their private life and use of their brains and bodies. And it is time, high time this country finally democratically decides to entrust supreme power to those who are not and don't want to be only men, white if possible and by necessity, who do not accept to harbor guns and weapons in their homes, or to negate the rights for women to do what they want with their life and body. Those who do not want women to be negated the right to choose. And above all those who consider private life to be just that, private, and who oppose those who are always looking for perverted and perverse private events, made up and invented if necessary, to discredit those they don't like. It is high time the victims of that insistent and permanent, still true and alive, discrimination against more than half the population of the USA comes to an end. And for the first time in US history, Time magazine saw what some possible roads to freedom could be and put up on the front page of a recent issue Obama's picture with the title of this very film, The Contender, across the page. Let me congratulate Ted Turner and his successors. Yes it is time for a woman and a Black to become the hope and future of this country in which we are so proud to believe in spite of all the imperialistic reflexes some of its leaders develop as if it were their second nature, or maybe even their first nature. It is well known Washington did cut the cherry tree and did not tell a lie about it, even before he did it. That is not true of everyone indeed, and some are definitely both guilty and irresponsible in front of human history. Let's hope all the fundamentalists, from the communistic, anarchistic or just old-fashioned Trotskyite left to the authoritarian, militaristic or plainly conservative right will be pushed aside and the reasonable who know life is a constant creation through work, learning, exchanging knowledge and goods, experience and expertise, and many other creative elements. In our societies some dead individuals were neglected and overlooked when burying time had come and they are still roaming around among us the living, un-dead as they are and be sure dead and un-alive un-dead they are. That's all the bad future I am dreaming humanity will offer themselves in the next few years, in the USA or in China, or in Europe, democracy in our homes and gardens and public squares. But remember a Shrine of Democracy has to be built in every home, in every school, in every village, in every neighborhood, and that will take more time and courage from everyone of us than just bouncing up and down in our seats and banging over and over again our hands on the tables, humming and repeating "Red Alert! Red Alert!" like some jackrabbits in a cabbage patch.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Rating: 
Date: 2007-08-04
What a joke
I approximately halfway thru this movie and unless it makes a big U-turn, this is one of the absolute worst films I have ever seen.
A vice president possible president pulled a train. Even if it was years ago, it is in the same class as Britney Spears and her no panty pics. YUK for this one. Rating:
Date: 2007-07-27
A Must see
Keep an open mind and focus on the message. I am a die hard Rep and Loved this film. It is about the courage to stay true to your convictions, whatever the price. Don't read beyond this review and watch the Best Movie I have seen. |
