The Apprentice 4 stars
The 2024 movie The Apprentice by director Ali Abassi tells the story of a young real estate investor in New York City who is mentored by a well-known, vicious attorney from whom he learns valuable lessons about how to become a killer in the real estate world and destroy those who would stand in his way. The apprentice is of course Donald J. Trump, 45th and 47th President of the United States and the mentor is Roy Cohn, the notorious New York attorney who began his career in the McCarthy era. Having read six books about this POTUS and seen the documentary Where’s My Roy Cohn, I didn’t learn a lot of new things about Donald Trump but admired Abbasi’s crafting of the story of the rise of this monster of American politics. As the movie begins, we see young Donald (Sebastian Stan of A Different Man and I, Tonya) performing the menial job of collecting rent from disadvantaged tenants of his father’s housing projects, threatening them with eviction for non-payment. Then he happens to meet Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong of Succession) at a gathering of worshippers and other criminal scum. Cohn sees potential in the young man and agrees to help him fight off an anti-discrimination lawsuit from the feds at no cost. He wants to keep Trump as a friend. It is from Cohn that Donald learns his three rules of success: 1. Always attack your enemies. 2. The truth is what I say the truth is. And 3. In defeat always claim victory. (We all know that Trump has put these rules to use throughout his career.) He emphasizes the importance of patriotism and defending democracy to Trump, but in Cohn’s mind democracy means low taxes for corporations and cutting social programs for the disadvantaged. Strong is effective at portraying Cohn’s brash and aggressive style as he threatens a federal attorney with photos of homosexual behavior and keeps a stash of secret recordings of incriminating behavior on public officials. As the film progresses, the bad behavior we are familiar with transfers to Trump. In one telling scene after Donald meets fashion model Ivana (Maria Bakalova (who made a name for herself in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm)), he proposes marriage but asks that she sign a prenup that states she must return all gifts if they separate. After an argument in the street he relents and agrees to remove the clause and Ivana agrees to accept the ring. When a stranger observes the interaction and shouts “Congratulations” to Trump, his response is “Fuck Off!”. When Trump’s brother Freddy passes away from alcoholism and Ivana offers sympathy to her husband, he rebukes her and shuts her out. He is incapable of soothing his crying baby son. When Ivana gives Donald a book that could reenergize their sex life, his response is to beat and rape her. (This is based on an account given by Ivana Trump that she later retracted.) When under pressure from rising debt, Trump tries to get his father, Fred Trump (Martin Donovan), who suffers from dementia to sign away control of the Trump properties. We see Donald expand his real estate empire in New York and Atlantic City maintaining his relationship with Cohn; that is until he learns that Cohn is sick, possibly from AIDS. Then Trump, who values loyalty won’t honor any favors toward his former attorney friend. In the end he tries to make up with Cohn by giving him a lavish birthday party at Mar-a-Lago, but afterwards the germaphobe Trump has the room fumigated. Ultimately, Cohn passed away from AIDS. Ali Abassi previously made a movie called Holy Spider, about a serial-killer in Iran. In The Apprentice he pulls no punches in portraying two of the greatest monsters of the present era. Both Stan and Strong command attention to the screen through their performances of these despicable men. And both were rewarded with Academy Award nominations in what could be called an American horror story. See it if you dare.