The Ides of March Review

Obviously inspired by Barack Obama quick rise to the presidency, the Ides of March combines that story with Primary Colors.  It's a really decent story with a terrific cast.  It has a lot of potential to be a gripping political drama.  However, it leaves all of that potential on the table.  The bottom line is that it is downright boring.  Ides never gets going.  It starts out confusing and, even though it seems to wrap everything up with no loose ends, you still come away a bit confused.

The only really decent part of the film is Philip Seymour Hoffman's little tirade on Ryan Gosling.  I said he was miscast in Moneyball.  But, PSH is meant to play roles like this.  He does the aging strategist very well.  And speaking of which, Paul Giamatti plays the secondary aging strategist very well too.  Those two are very believable in it.  In fact, the acting all around is very good.  It's just that the script is boring much like American politics in general. While they dress it up with controversy and debates and such, it is all nothing much more than grown people fighting based, not on what's right for the country but on the political colour of their state and what can get them elected.  In this, Ides makes a very poignant social statement about integrity and how there really is none in American politics.  It just does it in a way too boring way.  Instead of adding any intrigue or danger for any of the characters, they just let them get away with whatever with no real consequences.  As a result, you don't care what happens and, if you're like me, your mind wanders and you spend most of your time wondering if that's actually the shape of Ryan Gosling's face or if he's wearing about 1000 layers of pancake makeup around his eyes.

Don't see it.  It isn't worth your time.