THE APPRENTICE– 3 STARS

Right before the final scene of the movie, The Apprentice shows Sebastian Stan’s Donald J. Trump unconscious from anethesia in an operating room while an all-boys choir is singing the traditional hymn of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” in the background soundtrack. In a tightly-edited montage of close-ups, the film shows—in quite graphic detail—the businessman and future politician going under the knife to receive substantial liposuction to his love handles and have a growing bald spot on the crown of his head surgically removed in order for the remaining healthy hairline to be stapled closer together. After watching the salacious movie up to this point, one wouldn’t be out of line humorously expecting to see his OR stretcher bed tilted up in smoke revealing him reawakened in an darkly armored suit with a breathing apparatus or, even more dramatically, hoisted to a skylight out of frame to be struck by lightning in order to complete the procedure. 

Well, those are different kinds of monsters, or are they? The Anakin Skywalker who would become Darth Vader was cajoled by a powerful and politically-minded counseling figure of authority. The Creature from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein eventually swore revenge on humankind and his creator for the suffering they caused him. Shit, when you put it that way…

Without digressing any further and playing off the movie’s title matching Donald Trump’s long-running reality competition show focused on grooming business partners, The Apprentice immodestly leans on the influences of mentors and makers to explain its own protagonist. Poisonous pedigree produced the kind of narcissistic person willingly dropping thousands of dollars to sew up male pattern baldness and shortcut the efforts of diet and exercise to look his desired best. They wouldn’t be the subject’s– or the movie’s, for that matter—first or last creative choices rooted in grotesque self-absorption.

Written by Vanity Fair and New York magazine journalist Gabriel Sherman and directed by Holy Spider’s Ali Abbasi, The Apprentice follows the rising business career of Donald Trump from the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974 to just before the writing of his New York Times best-selling memoir/advice book Trump: The Art of the Deal in 1987. At this time, Trump is a bit of a sad sack knocking on doors to collect rent money with his suit and briefcase while driving a Cadillac with vanity plates. As the preferred second son, he’s been newly anointed the business heir to his successful real estate magnate father Fred Sr. (veteran character actor Martin Donovan). However, he and his family are reeling from a Department of Justice lawsuit alleging that the Trumps maintained unequal and exclusionary rental terms and conditions for potential African-American tenants at several of their multi-burrough properties. 

Hamstrung from making any substantial upward moves, Donald needs legal help and finds it in Roy Cohn (Succession Emmy winner Jeremy Strong), a former chief counselor for Joseph McCarthy and veteran political fixer in the New York City limelight with an illustrious list of clients including (and dropped as cameos) New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and the notable billionaire Rupert Murdoch. Cohn moves about the city and works a nightclub room and high-end restaurant dining room like a true heavy and heel. Trump latches onto the Cohn’s remorseless aura and entourage. Soon enough, the powerful attorney takes the rising business star under his wing, combining his take-no-prisoners mentality with what Fred Sr. has already molded to that point.

LESSON #1: LESSONS LEARNED FROM MENTORS– In The Apprentice, Roy Cohn is presented to have three rules to winning. Stop me if they sound familiar:

1. Attack, attack, attack.

2. Admit nothing, deny everything.

3. No matter what happens, never admit defeat and always claim victory.

Cohn adds other little rules and tips (Ex. superstitiously always letting the phone ring twice before answering) along the way of how a winner should carry themselves. Cohn stresses that it’s an advantage to not care what people think of you when all that matters is winning. Trump laps it up and begins to blossom like an oily orchid, eventually lifting his career, social life, and hotel/casino construction dreams to new heights. Along the way, Trump courts and marries the Czech model Ivana Zelníčková (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Oscar nominee Maria Bakalova, trapped in a thankless role). 

With this dominant, puppeteering presence, The Apprentice is as much a Jeremy Strong movie for a while as it is a Sebastian Stan one. Strong has long used his powerful scowl to bring other scene partners to their proverbial knees. The actor is downright scary underneath the 1970s decadence and trendy exterior, where there is confidence-massaging snake oil in his every drink and monologue while a late disco-era soundtrack backs the soirees. The wild thing is, despite starting out as a loser, the main character becomes even scarier.

LESSON #2: LESSONS BASTARDIZED FROM MENTORS– Trump’s ascent in riches and public image is mirrored by a descent in morality and a lust for recognition. When Donald finally sits down to explain his life to future Trump: The Art of the Deal ghostwriter Tony Schwarz and reveals his secrets to success, they have become a bastardized copy of Cohn’s tenets with more severe and profanity-laced qualifying clauses:  

1. The world is a mess. You have to fight back, so attack, attack, attack.

2. What is truth to anyone? Deny everything and admit nothing. 

3. No matter how fucked you are, never admit defeat and always claim victory. 

Moreover, the notion of a “winner” has been weaponized and replaced with his flippantly chosen synonym of “killer.” Rather than acknowledging a wealthy father’s silver spoon and the influence of a powerful mentor which made him into the success story he sees himself to be, Donald declares his methods and talents to be special inherent gifts only certain people are born with. Much of this mentality swelled to be a far cry from where it started with Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, and the fact Trump believes all of this bulletproof bullshit of his own making is what makes him scary and his own monster in the film. 

While the second-billed Jeremy Strong was added to be the emulated roots of frightening power, The Apprentice still lives and dies by Sebastian Stan’s eye-opening performance as Donald Trump. The usual Marvel movie beefcake and A-list pretty face recently seen in A Different Man is not afraid to smear his own charisma. Cloaked in a showy physical transformation, the costuming and makeup worked to pack on a few invisible pounds and apply that signature helmet of hair to the star. Looks are one thing, but where Stan really shines is in the verbal and emotional conveyances. Melded with the matching speech cadences, the embouchure Sebastian Stan yokes to end lines of dialogue with the precise, non-caricature amount of subtly pursed lips filtering all the incensed indifference of the man is a stroke of acting genius from Stan.

The answer to how to make an appealing biopic about an unsavory character is to have a hell of an actor or actress embody them. After that, The Apprentice strives strongly in its quest to expose and air out a few dirty laundry chapters of Donald Trump’s past. Very few punches are pulled, creating a– needless to say– purposefully unflattering portrait of the recent President in his virile younger days. It’s easier said than done to divorce the external politics and take this in as only a movie. Nonetheless, for those curious of such murky details, come see the movie that has already sparked several legal threats and actions taken against it. The Apprentice makes it feel like you’re watching a banned book.