Primary Colors (1998)

Sadly enough sins of the flesh have been used to bring down rising political figures since the dawn of time. 10 years ago my local Assemblyman was caught having an affair with an intern and faced a primary over it. Since in my opinion he did a good job in representing me and what I want quite frankly he could have had affairs on the state capital steps with 100 interns. I just don't care about these things. Still sadly enough people do and we've seen in fiction Charles Foster Kane brought down by his affair with Susan Alexander and in real life Charles Parnell in Ireland by his affair with Kitty O'Shea.

In a portrayal so obviously based on the Clintons they ought to sue, John Travolta and Emma Thompson play a southern governor and his Yankee born wife who is running for president. As Henry Kissinger said "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac and the groupies do buzz around Travolta, more than he can handle.

And because of that he's got this trail of women who are ready to exploit his new found celebrity as a presidential candidate. His presidential bid just might get derailed before he's out of the station.

All this is seen through the eyes of Adrian Lester whose granddad was a noted civil right activist who is considering signing on. He watches how Travolta deals with the various accusations, how his best defense is a good offense.

It saddens me that we lose a lot of potentially good public officials through these sins of the flesh. I've always hated politicians who having nothing else to offer make someone else's so called moral failings their main issue. We'll all be better off once as a society we're past that. Ironically the last presidential election may have been a game changer for the wrong reasons.

Primary Colors got two Oscar nominations, for best adapted screenplay based on Joe Klein's novel and Best Supporting Actress for Kathy Bates. Bates is a tough political infighter, but loyal to Travolta/Thompson having history going all the way back to the Vietnam war protests. She dominates when she's on screen and her very loyalty carries the seeds of self destruction.

Current Oscar contender Alison Janney has a really great part as a school administrator who has a drinking problem and misses no opportunity to put her issue across with Travolta. She's at the beginning of the film, but you remember her throughout.

Primary Colors, another in the pantheon of great political films.

Fmovies: I was never a big fan of the novel by Joe Klein that this movie is based on. Like Clinton, it seemed more slick and facile than satirical and insightful. There was a good story trying to get out, but it didn't. The movie manages to bring more of that story to the forefront, like the idea that even a nominee with good ideas and good heart needs to do dirty deeds to get elected because of how screwed up the American system is. I think Kathy Bates also deserves all the praise she's been getting, and Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton, and Maura Tierney are also good.

Travolta was a problem. Considering how much the filmmakers tried to distance themselves between their story and Clinton's real-life troubles, this seemed little more than a slick impression, and I found it distracting. I also found missed some of the stuff they cut from the novel, like Thompson's indiscretion with Adrian Lester's character, and the relationship between him and Tierney didn't have the context here that it did in the novel. And again, I was left wondering, "If you hate him that much, why stay?" Overall, an admirable effort, and maybe I'll be more receptive once this whole impeachment garbage fades from memory, but I still found it wanting.

As (I think it was) Yogi Berra said, "It's deja vu all over again!" On this, the weekend after the release of the Starr report, the movie rings so true. Travolta was great in por- traying the manic pathology of Stanton/Clinton.

And of course, Kathy Bates was superb as Libby, who in the end was unable to reconcile her loyalty to Stanton with her loyalty to the truth. If Stanton was flawed by his weakness of the flesh, Libby was flawed by her strength - by her inability to give up the best part of herself to the moral malaise that so pervaded the Stanton candidacy.

How ironic that the film ends with the inauguration ball, with Stanton and wife whirling in triumph across the ballroom floor, without a hint of what was to come... I have seen this film labeled a comedy. I cannot see it as anything other than a tragedy, in the Greek sense - a man who with the best of in- tentions, but whose flaws finally undo him.

Primary Colors fmovies. It's said that only the very best actors can compete with children and animals, and to this should be listed bright-eyed, cute-as-a-button young newcomers like Adrian Lester, who steals every scene he's in as an idealistic young aide until a larger-than-life Kathy Bates steamrolls her way onto the crowded scene. This film, based on Clinton's 1990 campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination, is a fictionalized, not factual, view of the man and his character and ideals, and quite simply one of the best films ever made about the confusing maze that is American politics.

Just as the American media, spurred on by the Republican witch-hunters, rubbed our noses in the dirt surrounding Clinton's indiscretions, the movie doesn't spare Jack Stanton for his moral weaknesses and poor personal judgements, but makes the point that the dirt grubbing and trivializing media are equally immoral in seeking to denigrate a man's political ideals because of his sexual peccadillos. The media is one Enemy of Truth, but the real Enemy of the People, lurking, malevolent and unseen, in the murky shadows at the edges of this film, is the Republican Party, and it's interesting that it takes a British director to take such a decisive stand, as Hollywood has always been reticent to take sides in the Democrat/Republican debate. The point made here, from the testimony of the battle-scarred "true Believers", from the idealistic young party aides, from the would-be President's wife (an uncanny portrayal of Hillary by a dynamic Emma Thompson) and Stanton himself (although physically unlike Bill Clinton, John Travolta gives a very believable performance), is that the President needs to be a man of the people, to be able to understand the people, and to be able to communicate with the people, despite the lies of his opponents and the mud slinging of the media. If America doesn't always get the President it deserves, it's because these very qualities are often blocked by his political enemies and a sensation-seeking media, particularly the television networks. An uninformed Democracy is no Democracy at all, and it's a mark of the inherent strength of the American people and their political system that it has withstood these obstacles, despite the many mediocre Presidencies we have seen in our times.

I thought "Primary Colors" (1998:***) was pretty good. It appears to be a lot easier on "Jack Stanton," the Clinton surrogate played by John Travolta, than the book reportedly was. The movie presents "Stanton" as flawed but essentially decent (at least as decent as any politician running for high office can be). Travolta's imitation of Clinton is OK for a "Saturday Night Live" sketch, but it sometimes gets in the way of his performance over the 2-1/2 hour length of the film. However, he's often effective, and Emma Thompson is first-rate as "Susan Stanton", by turns pragmatically worldly-wise and fiercely supportive. Actually, the focal point of the film is not that of the Stantons but the young, black grandson of a highly regarded civil rights leader, who gets sucked into Stanton's roller-coaster campaign and has his idealism sorely tested. He's well-played by an actor named Adrian Lester. There are also great turns by Kathy Bates, Larry Hagman and Billy Bob Thornton, among many others.

For me, the only big drawback of the picture was the melodramatic suicide of a key player in the drama (I won't say who). I thought it was something this particular character would never do. Otherwise, "Colors" is absorbing and funny and moving nearly all the way. Good moment: The Stantons do a "60 Minutes"-like reaffirmation of their marriage, but as soon as the cameras are turned off, she yanks her hand out of his in a flash.

This movie and the book upon which it was based caused a major stir when first released because President Bill Clinton felt the movie was based too much on his own life, even though the author denied that Clinton served as the model for the book's lead character.

It's kind of hard to believe the author, since John Travolta's character has a haircut and a Southern accent identical to Clinton's. Also, the scandals Travolta suffers in the film, such as adulterous affairs and having children out of wedlock, also plagued Clinton during his presidency.

Whoever you believe, Primary Colors is a very enjoyable film, even if you don't like political movies. The entire cast is great, especially Larry Hagman as an aging Florida senator who fills in for one of Travolta's opponents after he has a heart attack. It's a good step away from his J.R. Ewing character, even if his accent sounds the same.

Primary Colors is rated R for profanity and sexual references, but I think a PG-13 would have been more appropriate.

Krispy Kreme dougnuts, anyone?