There is a great deal more hagiography than history in “Reagan,” a worshipful biopic of the 40th U.S. President that often plays like the cinematic equivalent of CliffsNotes, or one of those compact paperback biographies of notable figures that are designed to be consumed in an hour or less.
Director Sean McNamara (“Soul Surfer”), working from a by-the-numbers screenplay by Howard A. Klausner (based on Paul Kengor’s book “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism”), is nothing if not brisk in his recounting of highpoints in the life of an iconic figure who, for better or worse, loomed large and exerted influence on the world stage throughout the final quarter of the 20th century and beyond.
Indeed, McNamara’s movie is so streamlined that, if you knew nothing about Reagan’s Hollywood heyday before he entered politics, you might wonder why he has a poster for the film “King’s Row” hanging prominently in his office during his terms as Screen Actors Guild president. Was that his best film? His favorite film? If you really want to know, you’ll have to do your own research.
There’s actually a very funny moment in the film: when a member of Reagan’s political advance team encourages a cohort to “Win one for the gipper!” — a quote from “Knute Rockne, All American” that stuck with Reagan as both catchphrase and nickname for most of his life. The guy’s cohort responds with a puzzled expression that clearly reads: “What the hell are you talking about?”
Of course, the joke likely will be appreciated best, if not exclusively, by folks with a living memory of Reagan the actor as well as Reagan the politician. That would appear to be the target audience for this once-over-lightly movie: Older people who have long embraced Reagan’s conservative politics and, arguably more importantly, share the film’s explicit and unquestioning regard for deep religious faith.
Younger viewers may be startled to hear Reagan claiming that God Almighty played a role in his surviving an assassination attempt — especially so soon after a contemporary politician (and his devoted followers) claimed something similar after his own brush with death. But, then again, that’s assuming anyone under the age of 40 would have any interest in seeing “Reagan” in the first place.
Dennis Quaid, decked out in rosy-cheek makeup, does a credible and creditable job of conveying both the gregarious charisma and steel-willed tenacity of Presdient Reagan, whether he’s taking on alleged Communists in the film industry during his tenure as SAG president or facing down Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev (Olek Krupa) during nuclear arms control negotiations in the ’80s. To be sure, Reagan himself, too often dismissed as a B-movie actor by people who haven’t actually seen many of his films, probably gave better performances (like, in “King’s Row”) during his Hollywood career. Then again, he never was cast as a President, so it’s difficult to make comparisons.
(A personal note: Whenever I have screened “Dark Victory” in college-level film courses, I’ve often faced skepticism from students when I told them that the actor cast as the amiable lush who unsuccessfully courted Bette Davis went on to become leader of the free world.)
But Quaid actually has a competitor for top acting honors here. Jon Voight is surprisingly effective as an aged former KGB agent who shares with a visitor in modern-day Russia the insights he gained from decades of keeping tabs on Reagan. Viktor Petrovich is an invented character, used as a narrative device in a manner not unlike author Edmund Morris’ insertion of himself as a fictional observer in his controversial 1999 Reagan biography “Dutch.” But Voight pulls it off, persuasively and often affectingly, even with a tricky Russian accent. He plays Petrovich as a melancholy lion in winter who’s still smarting from being repeatedly ignored, while warning that this “Hollywood Cowboy” might eventually play a major role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As Petrovich narrates the story, we begin with the 1991 assassination attempt, depicted here in a rather klutzy mix of archival footage and slo-mo recreation, then jump back to begin in earnest with young Reagan’s childhood in small-town Illinois. The son of a boisterous alcoholic father and a devoutly religious mother, young Reagan worked as a diligent bodyguard (whose heroics, Petrovich notes, may have been self-embellished) before kicking off an entertainment career as a radio announcer. Both occupations, the film suggests, served him well later in life.
The story sprints to one thing after another, detailing high points in Reagan’s life as though McNamara and Klausner were ticking off items on a grocery list. There’s a fleeting look at Reagan’s marriage to his first wife, actress Jane Wyman (Mena Suvari), who dumps him because, as her star is rising, he’s too distracted by anti-Communist campaigns. (“If you put as much work into your career as you do making your speeches,” she complains, “you’d have an Oscar by now.”) But never mind: Getting divorced allows him to connect with the true love of his life, Nancy Davis (Penelope Ann Miller), even though there’s a slightly creepy quality to his smooth moves during their meet-cute: Of course, as SAG President, he’ll gladly help her avoid being unfairly blacklisted — after they discuss the matter over dinner.
After that, “Reagan” charts the flaming out of his acting career — which, in real life, lasted longer than it’s indicated here — and his ascent into conservative Republican politics. He campaigns for failed Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, successfully runs for governor of California, unsuccessfully runs against Gerald Ford for the U.S. Presidency and then successfully defeats Jimmy Carter for the office, changing the world by more or less bitch-slapping the Soviet Union into submission and then riding off into the sunset before succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease.
Some of the messier details — the Iran-Contra scandal, for example — are glossed over, and others (most notably, his not-so-benign neglect of the AIDS epidemic) are scarcely mentioned at all. Again, this is hagiography, not history. If you accept it as such, you may find yourself mildly engrossed from scene to scene, regardless of your political persuasion, without ever viewing “Reagan” as anything more substantial than a small-budget docudrama series on cable TV. The only difference here is, unlike those shows, Reagan employs only one talking head: Voight’s KGB agent. That helps.
