‘The Apprentice’ movie review: explosive or exploitative?

When I heard that Ali Abbasi was directing a Donald Trump biopic, I must admit, I was slightly conflicted. I hadn’t gotten along too well with his 2022 film Holy Spider and worried that The Apprentice might toe a similar line of using something politically relevant for entertainment value without really saying anything about the subject matter. But after Trump personally filed for a cease and desist on the film’s release, I wondered whether I could be wrong. The million-dollar question was: how would they portray the former and potential future president of the United States?

The danger with making a film like this is that it could be too sympathetic to Trump, and when I first saw Sebastian Stan on screen, I worried that this could be the case. We first see him as an anxious and pathetic wannabe, desperate to sit with the cool kids in Manhattan’s exclusive clubs but throwing up in the back of a taxi after barely two drinks. His father is overbearing, he’s the butt of every joke, and, ultimately, the antithesis of all he aspires to be.

However, after a chance meeting with ruthless New York attorney Roy Cohn (played by Jeremy Strong), Trump’s luck starts to change. And it is this relationship that the film most concerns itself with, observing the exchange of power between both men and the creation of evil as Trump evolves from a snivelling schoolboy to scum of the earth.

Strong’s performance is beautifully contradictory; he is someone we first respect out of fear as we watch him proudly share his golden rules of tax evasion and dirty manipulation tactics. Cohn is a cut-throat killer; no method is off limits, and when we see his underground basement of illicitly obtained recordings of public officials admitting to personal affairs and bribery, we understand precisely the kind of lawyer he is. Upon seeing this room, Trump stammers, “But… isn’t that illegal?” Cohn throws his hands up in the air as if to say, “My dear boy, that is the point!” 

But we eventually grow to pity him so deeply as his pain becomes the only human aspect of the film, slowly watching a man whose humanity has been hollowed out by a world that sucked up his one gift, left with no one standing in his corner. But make no mistake, the man is still a monster, but a monster that we can better understand. We see his vulnerabilities laid out in the open as the public mercilessly picks apart and harasses him about his sexuality, back-tracking on the steely image he once had. Partial redemption is possible for some, but not for Trump.

As their friendship deepens, Cohn teaches Trump (my computer, somewhat appropriately, keeps auto-correcting his name to trauma) how to further climb the slippery ropes of Manhattan real estate and schmooze his way up the social ladder, marrying Ivanka at the beginning of his moral demise, we slowly begin to see the semblance of the Trump we know today. Stan is constantly evolving and workshopping his portrayal of Trump throughout the film, gradually building the strange collections of quirks and tics that we know him by today.

As Trump conquers the grimy monopoly board of over-bearing New York sky-scrapers, we see the growth of his own narcissism and the dangerous mentality that has terrorised a nation of people: a man who is unable to see the truth and surrounds himself with delusion and people who won’t say no to his childish demands. His brother is an addict, and Trump turns him away when he begs for help. He cruelly tells his wife that he isn’t attracted to her anymore and then sexually assaults her. He dismisses Cohn and his friendship, believing himself to be above his company after discovering he has AIDS.

And here is where the film began to play on my mind. While the behaviour on display of Trump is truly despicable, the movie aligns itself with him the whole time. There are moments where we see glimmers of Ivanka’s loneliness and the dehumanising treatment she’s subjected to, but Abbasi never lets us linger in the perspective of people who disliked or were critical of Trump, and without any comparison to people who openly objected to his behaviour, it doesn’t feel as though the film is biting enough to be mocking or critical enough to be constructive, we’re just meekly following him on this relentless power trip with an aggressively high-energy soundtrack.

While the film is technically innovative, with the second half being shot on an entirely different camera that creates a grainy, VCR style as Trump becomes as cheap and empty as a reality TV show, I fear that the storytelling is not as punchy or innovative

Abbasi’s portrait of one of the most harmful people in the world ultimately felt hollow and a little spineless. Making a film about a politically charged and topical current issue doesn’t automatically add weight to the story, and in order to be genuinely subversive and controversial, it needed to say more than point out that Trump is a bad person. This isn’t breaking news; we’ve known it for a while. And considering how powerful Trump is and all the battles they faced to get the film made, it feels a shame not to make something bolder.

While The Apprentice is certainly entertaining, at what cost does it entertain us? Using the monstrosities of this person for entertainment feels exploitative, and by not projecting any criticism onto the character, it feels like it is just that. It’s not mocking enough to be satirical and not honest enough to be explosive. By not commenting on the wider impact of his actions, it makes an otherwise forceful and dynamic film feel slightly weak and cowardly, creating a docile commentary of America’s most dangerous lunatic.

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