“THE APPRENTICE”
Starring Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan
Written by Gabriel Sherman
Directed by Ali Abbasi
Produced by Daniel Bekerman, Amy Baer, Jacob Jarek, Tony Grier, Julianne Forde, Ruth Treacy, Louis Tisne
Cinematography by Kasper Tuxen
Edited by Olivier Bugge Coutte and Olivia Needgaard-Holm
Music by Martin Dirkov

By Matt Neufeld
The Washington Film Institute
October 10, 2024

The first thing to note clearly, loudly and directly about director Ali Abbasi’s and writer Gabriel Sherman’s new human character study drama film “The Apprentice” is to please ignore all of the moronic and idiotic pre-release, behind-the-scenes drama swirling around the movie and just remember two things: “The Apprentice” is an excellent film–it’s one of the year’s best movies–and everyone needs to go see this film as soon as possible. Everyone.

Now that that’s clear, it’s also important to note that this film, which socially, culturally, historically and psychologically examines the wholly bizzaro, psycho and dangerous symbiotic relationship between a rising, at-first innocent and yet ultimately, subsequently deranged, arrogant, lying, cheating and power-mad developer Donald Trump and an equally psychotic, deranged, arrogant, lying, cheating and power-mad lawyer Roy Cohn in the concurrently deranged, lying, cheating and power-mad New York City of the 1970s and 1980s, is this: “The Apprentice” is not exactly or even mostly a partisan, biased or even literal political film. It really isn’t, despite what any current deranged, arrogant, lying, cheating and power-mad naysayers may wrongly say. Just to be clear here: “The Apprentice” is not an inherently political film.

Now that that’s stated, please note this next point: One particular scene in the movie–an apparent, alleged sexual assault and rape by Trump of his then-wife Ivana–was originally described and detailed and stated as a rape by Ivana in a sworn legal deposition when Trump and Ivana divorced. That is an official legal statement under law and a legal public record, for the record. Ivana later tried to whitewash her own sworn legal statement by somehow trying to say that she didn’t mean rape in a criminal sense, or some such Trumpian-style nonsense. Nevertheless, the film’s lawyers, and the rule of law and sworn legal statements and public record, eventually determined and ruled that the rape scene in the film is legally protected and legally allowed to be depicted in the film. It’s no spoiler, by the way, to reveal this scene, because it’s been in the news for nearly a year now. So it’s been determined that that scene is legally protected to be in the movie.

Now that that’s clear, please note this point: During the past year or so, an early financial backer of the film was the son-in-law of none other than deranged, arrogant, deluded and power-mad Dan Snyder, a Trump supporter. Yes, THAT Dan Snyder. So when Snyder saw an early cut of “The Apprentice,” of course he went ballistic and protested the film. The filmmakers eventually bought out the son-in-law, erasing any connection to Snyder, who one would rationally think could not do anything more in his sad, sorry lifetime to completely destroy his standing among all of the inhabitants of the planet Earth.

And, finally, there’s this point, as unpleasant as it is to note: Trump himself and his crazed Legions of Doom threatened the filmmakers behind “The Apprentice” with—-believe it or not—-a completely baseless cease-and-desist order regarding the release of the film. Bizarrely, and hilariously, this moronic, baseless action is exactly the type of unethical, crazed, desperate and flat-out wrong type of action that the film shows Trump and Cohn increasingly engaging in to madly, desperately and crazy serve their tragic, blind and irrational thirst for power, power and more power and their concurrent thirst to apparently serve little more than their psychologically out-of-control egos and minds. Fortunately, sane legal minds found and determined that any crazy cease-and-desist orders were entirely baseless and unfounded, and the legal minds cleared “The Apprentice” for a nationwide release on Friday, October 11, 2024—-to the benefit of nothing less than all of mankind.

Now that all of that nonsense is fully, completely behind us, thanking the sane and rational legal powers that be, we can talk about “The Apprentice” solely as a movie.

And that’s a good thing, because, as originally stated, “The Apprentice” is just excellent, on every level.

This is a film that shines, dazzles and excels on all filmic levels.

There’s a crazily-retro, deliciously, deliriously gritty, grimy, sleazy and realistic production design that amazingly, hilariously and entertainingly recreates the decadence, decay, degradation, rot, corruption, urban depression and insanity that was much of New York City in the Seventies and Eighties. Not all of the city was suffering, mind you, but, realistically, much of it actually, truly was suffering. This is important, because the city of that time and its varying corrupt power structures are a valid part of the story of “The Apprentice.”

There’s a consistently above-average smart, intelligent, insightful, clever, original, wildly confident, psychologically deep, socially and culturally probing and genuinely humanistic and heartfelt direction by Abbasi and concurrent writing by Sherman. Above all else, Abbasi and Sherman, working closely together as a cohesive team, present a most original film, story, plot, set of characters and attendant story, plot and character development as a tragic humanistic, human being-centered moralistic fable and drama about two sad, drifting, confused men who find each other, develop some odd Frankenstein-and-his-monster clinging relationship, and promptly lose themselves, their sanity, their rational lives—-and their hearts, souls and minds. The film astounds in its presentation of two truly Shakespearean-tragic pseudo-kings who go mad while their kingdoms of flimsy cards slowly crumble all around them.

There’s outstanding, bold, risky, brave, courageous and continuously impressively-talented acting by the three lead actors, who appear in, well, just about every, if not every, take, shot and scene in the movie.

And there’s a brilliant overall notable contribution by the film’s artistic and technical crew, whose set, art and production designers; costumers; props masters; hair and make-up artists; music composers; cameramen; lighting and sound designers; and editors all contribute in a grand, wildly thrilling style to accurately and strangely-beautifully re-create in looks, sound, feeling, atmosphere and mood that bizarre New York City of the film’s time period of the ’70s and ’80s. You can almost smell the rot and decay of not only certain aspects of the city, but of the crazed power mongers contributing to the doom and gloom. You can almost taste the bitterness, stress, anxiety, insanity and office, union, political and mafia battles permeating so many dirty corners of government, politics, business, unions and unorganized mafioso syndicate crime.

The artistic designs, Abbasi’s direct-targeted direction and Sherman’s razor-sharp, acid-tipped, acerbic, satirical and dead-on killer script all perfectly combine to recreate a rogue’s gallery of all those despicable political, legal, business, union and mafia chieftains and their greedy attitudes, all smarm and snobbery and snottiness as they wheel and deal atop ivory skyscrapers and gilded halls of absolutely corrupt corridors of warped power, while the New York masses stew and steam and simmer below amid blackouts, trash strikes, mafia mob rule, corrupt unions, corrupt foremen, corrupt police officials, out-of-control crime, unchecked sprawl and over-development, pollution that literally chokes people, and general increasing apocalyptic despair.

Yes, alas, there and elsewhere, not much has changed in the ensuing forty to fifty years after the film’s setting. Today, in 2024, that same once-idealistic, once-Democrat, once-innocent Trump is facing very real indictment in several court cases, he’s running for president somehow for some reason, several of his once-loyal minions have vehemently turned on him, and prominent Republicans are campaigning against him. And, just within the past few weeks, the current mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, was indicated on federal corruption charges. Let’s review: The mayor of New York City was indicated on federal corruption charges in 2024. And, also within the past few weeks, Sean Combs, once one of the more powerful people in entertainment, was charged with sex trafficking, fraud and racketeering charges, and he’s sitting in a Brooklyn jail awaiting his trial. A Brooklyn jail. And just as this is being written, the news broke that New York City Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Thomas Donlon is expected to resign within the next few days, according to Politico, as widespread corruption allegations smother and envelope the entire NYPD, Donlon and his predecessor, Edward Caban. That’s two Police Commissioners leaving office amid a corruption investigation of certain aspects of the New York City Police Department. And, meanwhile, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is broke, disgraced, he spouts wildly bizarre conspiracy theories, he is a crazed Trump supporter and he has pretty much been driven out of the legal and political professions. All of the above is true. Really.

What’s all of this have to with the movie “The Apprentice?” you say? Everything. The movie is all about corruption in general—-corruption of the soul; corruption of the psyche; corruption of men and women over time; corruption of politicians, businessmen and lawyers, among others; corruption in New York City; and the corruption of New York City. To draw direct parallels to the past and the present is to connect directly to one of the major morals, lessons and messages of “The Apprentice:” Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And deranged, deluded, degrading, despondent and depressive power ruins everyone and everything in its path, for absolutely no good reason.

And that brings us directly to the story at hand in “The Apprentice.” The movie starts as we follow a young Donald Trump in the 1970s, initially as he’s working for his father’s, yes, legally-troubled and widely-ridiculed housing development business. Like father, like son: The elder Trump is staring down investigations and lawsuits–and, ahem, allegations of racism–and it seems like the end is near. That young, somewhat naive Donald Trump, as a type of “Final Destination” spooky fate would have it, finds the famous lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn and pleads for help with getting the feds off the back of the family business. So what does the hypocritical Cohn do? Cohn digs up pictures of one of the Justice Department lawyers engaging in homosexual trysts and essentially blackmails the lawyer into dropping the case against the Trumps, which the frightened lawyer promptly does. What’s so hypocritical is that Cohn was homosexual himself. Not that there’s anything wrong with that–because there isn’t, of course–but Cohn was essentially blackmailing someone into hiding the same thing that Cohn was hiding. The Trumps walked away clean.

That was just the start of something wicked that this way came.

After that initial victory, Cohn, who at that point in the Seventies was on top of the world with a steamrolling, feared and powerful legal and political machine, takes Trump under his broken, tattered wings and lectures the naive developer in the blackest dark arts of deceit, deception, warped thinking, corrupt politics, literally lying much of the time, weaponizing the legal system, weaponizing the business world, weaponizing the political world, denying everything even when some things are true, and focusing on the mighty dollar even if it means ruining and stampeding over most people, things and entities in your way.

And Trump blindly and, increasingly, insanely follows Cohn’s lead, to the point where both men delve deeper into corruption, both men get swallowed up whole by their blind ambition, and both men eventually fall and fail straight to hell—-a hellish hell of their own making. Trump builds and builds more and more buildings and casinos—-but he also builds up horrendous debt, investigations, lawsuits and creditors. He yells, screams, lies, threatens everyone with lawsuits, degrades and insults just about everyone around him, marries and then alienates and then divorces Ivana, tries to fraudulently rip off his own father–really–and then, eventually, even turns on, angers and alienates Roy Cohn–the very man who essentially, basically made Donald Trump. It’s all very sad, depressing, dramatic, emotional—-and absolutely 100 percent endlessly, stunningly, entertainingly fascinating.

Meanwhile, Cohn also sees his once-mighty, once-powerful, once-highly-influential empire sink into the abyss. He gets AIDS—but he denies it, saying publicly that he has liver cancer. He is disbarred. And the Internal Revenue Service hits Cohn up for a $7 million bill for alleged non-payment of taxes. It’s all very sad, depressing, dramatic, emotional—-and absolutely 100 percent endlessly, stunningly, entertainingly fascinating.

Sebastian Stan turns in a brilliant, dynamic and bravura performance as Donald Trump. To Stan’s great credit and to the filmmakers’ great credit, this is not a comedic, satirical or caricatured portrayal of Donald Trump by Stan. In this film, this young Donald Trump is wonderfully portrayed by Stan in a complex, nuanced and balanced performance as simply a very real human being. Early on, gasp, he’s even somewhat sympathetic—-for a brief moment or two. All of this is why this is not a political film. This is a humanistic dramatic film. And Stan portrays Donald Trump in this movie as a human being, full of all of life’s bizarre complexities, quirks, eccentricities, vanities, sins, ambition, wants, needs and emotions. This particular Donald Trump in “The Apprentice” as portrayed by Stan is, dare it be uttered, relatable, real and one of us. We see the early stages of the creation of the Frankenstein monster he becomes, but even that evil transformation is presented on a human-style and human-sized scale. So much credit goes out to Stan for his mesmerizing performance.

The same praise can and will be said for Jeremy Strong’s equally mesmerizing and excellent performance as Cohn. With sad, droopy but still glaring and devastating eyes, with a smooth-talking, low-register but still powerful politically-oriented and legally-oriented voice of subtle but commanding power, Strong is at once powerful, dominating, smooth, fearful—and yet also sad, tragic and scary. Like Trump, Cohn is a strange, bizarre walking set of irrational contradictions and complexities. Strong delivers an equally complex, balanced and nuanced original performance.

Actually, Stan’s Trump and Strong’s Cohn are scary early on due to their inherent wealth, standing, fearlessness and power, but the characters increasingly become even more scary in an increasingly darker and truly frightening way as the film progresses. We do watch in horror as Trump and Cohn, steadily absolutely corrupted by power, greed and thoroughly blind ambition, crazily destroy themselves and everyone and everything around them.

An equally excellent Maria Bakalova is caring and enticing as the young Ivana Trump. Ivana, too, is a truly tragic person—you can’t help but wonder how and why on earth this woman was ever attracted to Trump, why she would marry him, and why she didn’t leave him earlier. Bakalova is beautiful, and sexy, and she does bring a human–and tragic– element to Ivana.

In the end, Trump and Cohn, figuratively and literally, are left with nothing. Their crazy power drives, crazy ruthlessness, crazy lying and cheating (Cohn reveals to Trump at one point, a la Nixon and Watergate, a secret taping system he uses to entrap and blackmail people), and crazy overall craziness drive them mad, bad and sad to the point of near complete isolation from the sane world, the rational world and the real world that most of us inhabit.

Much like the equally tragic Michael Corleone sitting all alone at the end of “The Godfather Part II,” alienated from everyone and everything around him, in a very real way, Donald Trump and Roy Cohn are left all alone by the time our dizzying ride through “The Apprentice” comes to a satisfying conclusion. It’s all tragedy on a grand, but human, level. Oh, yes, Trump does indeed go on to do a few more things. There’s a true horror story sequel waiting patiently in the wings for its green light. But that, as they say, is another story for another time in another movie.

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