As the oxymoronic United States of America head into their winter of discontent with a Presidential candidate made inglorious by his baulk and squawk, THE APPRENTICE is a timely reminder if the dissembling nature of the contestant.
Unlike the parties thrown by Roy Cohn, you don’t have to be indicted to get invited to THE APPRENTICE, a deep dive into the underbelly of the American empire, that charts a young Donald Trump’s ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn.
Directed by award-winning Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, THE APPRENTICE is a searing exploration of the exploitative and excessive exigency of the American empire and a jaw dropping examination of the mentor-protégé relationship that set Trump on his quest for world domination.
THE APPRENTICE depicts the seed sowing megalomania in Donald Trump, the acorn of that dissembling nature that has grown, crooked and knotted and branched out into global politics putting propriety in the shade of its shameless hubris and hypocrisy.
THE APPRENTICE commences in 1970s New York. On the television, President Richard Nixon is telling the nation that he is not a crook. That worked out well for him.
Somewhat of a devotee of Tricky Dicky, and determined to emerge from his powerful father’s shadow and make a name for himself in Manhattan real estate, aspiring mogul Donald J. Trump is busy being a slum landlord. At that time, the Big Apple was rotten to the core, a blighted urban centre riddled with violent crime. But Trump believed the city was due for a comeback, and that he was the man to spearhead the renaissance, if only he had the right backing.
That backing came through his “apprenticeship” to political fixer Roy Cohn. The brash, shameless and unscrupulous lawyer teaches his new acolyte how to amass wealth and power through deception, intimidation and media manipulation. What a great master and what a student!
In one pivotal scene in THE APPRENTICE, Cohn shares his “rules of winning” with his protégé; Trump not only took the rules to heart, but they also came to serve as a mantra for the future president: Rule 1. Attack. Attack. Attack. Rule 2. Admit nothing. Deny everything. Rule 3. Claim victory and never admit defeat.
THE APPRENTICE is essentially a two-hander, and Sebastian Stan as Trump is a triumph, as is Jeremy Strong as Cohn.
Stan’s performance evolves from a somewhat nervous outsider with grand ambitions to the increasingly bombastic, incredibly public figure we currently see grandstanding on the world stage.
Strong’s portrayal of Cohn, presents a complex and seemingly irredeemably flawed man, a closeted gay man who died from complications of AIDS, vicious, ruthless and cruel, and unrepentant, shoring up an inner emptiness with a voracious desire to accumulate clout and power as a protection against his own self-hatred and shame for his homosexuality.
THE APPRENTICE plays out like a feisty Faustian bargain that has a to and fro pendulum aspect to the pact. The art of the deal and the detail in the devil.