The Contender **** (2000, Joan Allen, Gary Oldman, Jeff Bridges, Christian Slater, Sam Elliott, William L Petersen, Philip Baker Hall, Saul Rubinek) – Classic Movie Review 3168

‘Sometimes you can assassinate a leader without firing a shot.’ Joan Allen stars as Senator Laine Hanson, who is a hot contender for the job of US Vice President. But then both true information and false disinformation about her past surface, threatening to derail her ambitions. While the confirmation process proceeds, Laine is the victim of a vicious personal attack on the way she has been leading her private life, and stories of sexual deviancy are spread.

Senator Hanson’s sexual past is dragged into the public eye just as the US President Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges) nominates her the first woman US Vice President. A powerful political adversary, Senator Shelly Runyon (Gary Oldman), believes that it is his duty to discredit her, so he is the instrument who drags out the allegations that threaten her reputation and challenge her integrity. Should she fight back or stick to her principles and stay quiet?

Writer-director Rod Lurie’s 2000 drama is an exciting, sharp, provocative political thriller, with lots of intelligence in the writing and great performances to put it across in acting tour-de-forces all round. Bridges and Allen were deservedly Oscar and Golden Globe nominated, and there is other performance power with Christian Slater, Sam Elliott, William L Petersen, Saul Rubinek, Philip Baker Hall, Mike Binder, Robin Thomas, Mariel Hemingway, Kathryn Morris, Kristen Shaw and Anthony [Tony] Booth (as Peter Crenshaw) also in the cast.

The Last Picture Show (1971) is Bridges’s first Oscar nomination, followed by Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), Starman (1984), The Contender and True Grit (2010). He won Best Actor for Crazy Heart (2009).

Anthony Booth, also known for Till Death Us Do Part (1968), The L-Shaped Room (1962) and Brannigan (1975), died on 25 September 2017, aged 85.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3168

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