THE APPRENTICE

The story of Trump's beginnings of his empire and his mentorship under confidante Roy Cohn during the 1970's & 1980's. Being so close to the election and with a cast featuring the likes of Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, and Maria Bakalova, the purpose was clear: attack Trump and paint him in a negative light to hopefully sway voters to not vote for him. That's the agenda here; probably more fact than fiction. It's not heavy-handed but there's plenty here to paint Donald in an extremely negative light. He's portrayed at times as weak and naive with a scene of an alleged rape thrown in too for good measure. I'm sure writer Gabriel Sherman and director Ali Abbasi most important task was impartiality. Beyond the obvious anti-Trump bias, Stan actually does a decent job in his portrayal of the Don, if even over-the-top at times but I was really surprised that Strong as Cohn actually is the star here with his ruthlessness and lack of any moral compass. Not a big marketing push behind this as I'm sure the studio is saving the money to allow word-of-mouth to do the marketing for them. 6/10