Reagan (2024) Movie Review: An American Hero

ah all right let's do it it's movie time everybody we're talking about a movie today which you already know because you clicked on this video my God okay what a terrible way to start this one off am I going to keep this in yeah I am cuz I don't know how to start this off it feels like I should just like sit down on camera and then like sit on a whoopy cushion so you just get like the sound of a fart that's how we should start start this this off we're not going to do that because I have some class instead I'm just going to describe what I should have done to be funnier we're talking Reagan today that's right folks we are talking the new Ronald Reagan biopic are you excited it's in theaters now the first major release of September if you can call it a major release this is from a studio I have no idea who it is or what they do it's called like Showbiz pictures or like kiz films or something like that it seems offbrand for like an offbrand thing it doesn't even seem like Angel Studios which is a studio I do appreciate some of the stuff they do I don't know what this is I had very limited knowledge of this movie going into it I saw jokes on Twitter about Dennis Quaid making a Ronald Reagan biopic that's what I knew and I'm like oh man I can't wait to see that thing let's get this out of the way there there's a lot to discuss here so it's going to be very prompt and just like off the cusp of everything we're talking about this is a stupid movie that exists for all the wrong reasons and is very one-sided in its narrative which is the case for a lot of biopics we're watching a story about a certain figure we're going to see everything they do presented like this I'm not mad about it that's not what's bad about this movie this is about Ronald Reagan who is a president I will say sucks I don't like Ronald Reagan I didn't like him when he was an actor I don't like the way he handled certain situations during the Communist Red Scare of Hollywood I think he sold some people out I think when he became a governor he did certain things I think when he became president he handled certain things fine he handled other ones poorly and he was not a guy I respect or admire in any capacity he did some good stuff and this is the this is the thing we have to talk about this this is the thing when I don't like Ronald Reagan and I don't I have to acknowledge and everyone should acknowledge there is some good he did for this country I say this country even though I'm in Canada he did some good stuff he up other stuff and maybe made some bad decisions and broke some laws but what president hasn't you know which is a terrible thing to say but all presidents are bad none of them are perfectly good even the good ones did bad stuff even the bad ones did good stuff it's all nebulous and boring so Ronald Reagan for one Dennis Quaid I don't really care for him I can't imagine he's an exciting actor people want to see do stuff so him playing a guy I don't like that's not gonna do anything for me um Sean mcamera is the director you might be familiar with that name if you've seen like the Even Stevens movie or the Sweet Life on deck movie he did Bratz as well and you know he did like that Prince's Daughter movie that was like supposed to release before Co but came out like two years ago not a good director and I don't like his style so nothing is really working for me on this and then I see names show up in this thing like John Voit another guy I'm like oh I don't give a about John Voit or anything he does that sucks Kevin Sorbo is in this well I guess he's an actor right all saying he should get parts in movies instead of just bitching on Twitter while he has a part in a movie and you're not going to believe it he plays a pastor who like baptise this young Ronald Reagan this movie is crazy and not for like just what it's doing but it is that it's just like who sat down and thought you know what the people need right now in an election cycle the Proto Trump like the thing we built to get to Trump you know there was there's a lot of similarities there we're not going to get into it but this is a very specific movie doing a very specific thing and that thing sucks so this is a biopic about Ronald Reagan but it's not your standard biopic no no no this is a lot like the Elvis movie from bos lurman because we have John void playing an old KGB agent who's talking to like a new guy coming up in the industry of Russia or whatever and he's like can you tell me what happened to the Soviet Union why it and he's like yes young guy let me tell you the tale of the Crusader Ronald Reagan the cowboy bo bo boo so half of this movie is just vo explaining narration to history events that took place with Reagan that's a very weird choice to make is it because we need to make the Communists look like they're weak and like the Soviets look stupid I don't understand it this movie has a very specific problem and that is how much it worships Ronald Reagan and how much it just worships him on a level that should never be the case for any politician this presents him as a man who could do no wrong every woman sees him they're like this is a guy I love he is so capable and smart the most handsome and beautiful guy in any room he can crack a joke no matter how stupid and everyone's going to laugh we're going to present him as like the pretty pristine American God-fearing man and that is a terrible way to present a lead because you are alienating an entire audience that way way but at the same time the audience you are alienating does not want to see this stupid movie I went to it because oh no it's the long weekend here in Canada and I had nothing else to watch so I'm like I'll see this stupid movie and it is stupid it is very stupid it doesn't give you any insight into any of the characters it is almost to a parody level of how it has handles all of this stuff I I went to see this with my father a man who is from that era of American politics now he's not American but we were talking before the film and after the film just about Reagan and the stuff he did and how cool he was and like what he helped accomplish or whatever you know he got the wall down in Berlin good for you you ended the Cold War you defeated the Soviet Union single-handedly is how the movie paints it out to be where was I going with this and talking to my father father you know he's of that generation so there's like stuff that he's aware of he is an older man who is white and is I would say in some Essence kind of Republican and I think that's an entire era and that's the audience that's going to see this this is a movie that's like well we're going to get the audience that supports Trump we're going to get the audience that believes in like this things used to be better back in the 80s and there was nothing bad happening and it's it's not going to show you the bad stuff or any of the problematic things that Ronald Reagan was a part of it's just going to show you that he was you know a soldier fighting the good fight throughout every iteration of his career whether that's an actor the president of the SE Guild The Screen Actor Guild no I said SE Guild to a governor to president to just a man who could do no wrong it's truly insane what he did and I think the audience that's going to relate to that is people in their 60s who are white and just think the world's different now because we have cell phones and and it's like yeah the Soviets were bad yep sure I don't care I don't care okay that's not the big problem with this movie it the big problem with this movie if there is one there's a lot the biggest problem I I don't even want to say the biggest problem I don't know what the biggest problem is the biggest problem is probably just making this goddamn mess one of the problems I'm getting riled up thinking about this stupid movie one of the problems is how it glorifies Reagan but how it treats everyone else as inferior to his Brilliance which is really annoying the only one who might be like his intellectual equal is John Voit describing this stuff in past tense it's like I saw it from the beginning I saw this guy he's going to do bad stuff he would be the downfall the Soviet Union just like one guy knew that he was in one room with him sometime the is like that's when we're going to lose everything I don't understand it what a weird movie it's paced poorly it's edited poorly half of this movie is establishing shots if you think for a minute you don't know where you're going to be in five minutes this movie will tell you because we go to every state every freaking country in so many different years and they'll tell you with like a sweeping shot like now we're in ruic and now we're here in California we're in the state of California now we're at this certain meeting over here it's like every freaking second it is setting up a new establishing shot did we not get enough footage to make this a featurelength film so we had to just have sweeping shots that go on for like five to six seconds every time we go to a new location just to show you like the b-roll of where we were it's very annoying and only something a film nerd like me is going to think about if you're just here watching the old Kipper doing something strong you're not going to think about that but I am because it looks bad and it's stupid and it's really weirdly edited there is one sequence that really stood out to me where we see Ronald and Nancy leaving the White House they're like walking behind it getting into a helicopter we see them get in the helicopter and then they take off and in the next scene he's back in the Oval Office in the next scene we see him leave the White House get in a helicopter and then the next scene he's back in the white house it looks stupid and I'm like who let that happen why would we have that happen then it's very specific and I also think in an establishing shot there was like a CGI bird that they had fly across the screen very poorly I think that's what I saw or was just a really stupid looking bird that flew on camera but there's no way was cuz it looked fake as hell there's also like some plain sequences that look stupid there's like I don't think they're using like the volume technology but there are some fake ass backgrounds that look very noticeable because you know what the budget is we had like a room to film this in what a dumb movie you You' think Dennis Quaid could pull it off I guess if you are a fan of Dennis Quaid you might think he could pull it off I don't think he does I don't think he pulls it off at all he is doing a lot of movements with his mouth which I guess is the key cuz you're trying to keep it on like it's same level like your jaw that we saw Reagan have looks nothing like him it's crazy how we see the progression of Ronald Reagan played by Dennis Quaid from I think like 1944 up until his death and he basically looks the same aside from like maybe a cheap hair dye cuz God forbid we do anything like that I do not like how they handled Nancy Reagan which I think in the public of like America she wanted to take like a more active initiative in like her husband's presidency so she there's certain things she was a part of this movie Just washes over all that and just makes her like my husband knows everything he's the best quit asking him questions he can't answer just let him be himself he's so perfect it's very excruciating and there's no depth to that character but I can't fault it for that she's the one female character in this movie and none of the male characters have any agency or urgency or character to them at all so up the female character you up the male characters too so there's nothing really to that the Soviet Union is portrayed as cartoon characters which I get you know because this is an American film made by a very specific type of people they're not going to try to make these cool it's really stupid brn and gorbachov are like the two main ones that we spend time with and bre's like I don't know this is kind of stupid look at this and then G's like well I'm kind of smart but everything you do is the power play against me Reagan ah it was very weird and I I think you could tell the older audience that I saw this with was like familiar with gorbachov because they reacted the audience reacted like they saw a cameo by an Avenger in a Marvel movie when gorbachov showed up on screen same way people reacted when we cut to red and saying tear down that wall I I wasn't alive then so I don't know this like impact that had on live television I know it's a big deal that might be the most important thing he did in his presidency honestly there's also this very small undercurrent throughout this film about the fear of God and how God can save us and we'll be with God forever I I know the type of man Ronald Reagan is that is what he does that is how he behaves personally and this is just a personal stance I think you should take religion out of politics I don't think it's for the benefit of anybody to have those be involved I know why you do that and I know why Americans do that I know the type of country America is especially in this era and there are certain times where I see the way I feel politically or religiously or just the things I connect to more being presented as stupid dumb and antagonistic towards the future Ronald re is building in this movie there is a little bit of him fighting the hippies just being like you hippies you don't know anything these protests they're kind of for the good reason but I don't stand by everything going on here I'm going to turn like this dirty boy into a proper gentleman and then there is like one part of the film that's a montage about the stuff that he up on you know maybe they release krak into some underprivileged neighborhoods maybe the AIDS epidemic was a problem he didn't solve maybe he was friends with Mar Margaret Thatcher for the wrong reasons and it just like well those were issues but come on they're about like gay people and black people we don't care we're just talking about the whites of America which I'm not saying that's the message of this film that is just how it's presenting very few people of color in this film if there are any I mean there is a scene early on where it shows you that like he's playing like football because he's like the perfect American Boy and like they they're going to like travel on like the bus to go fight like another college or high school or something but they can't let the black players go on the bus or travel with them to like this other place so Reagan's like I'll just let you guys stay with me for a bit I'm like I'm I could see that happening but I don't know how like deep it went into that you know where you I don't know I'm reading into stuff there Ronald reag that's all I'm saying in this this movie it presents like we're watching Superman like it treats Ronald Reagan like he is Superman every action he takes is just like a swelling of Music we're spinning the camera following like his interactions like he is just about to save the entire world by reversing like the polarity or something it treats him with such reverence that it truly truly feels like everybody involved whether it's his chief of staff the writers of the script the actors playing every single part are just sucking on the Dick of Ronald Reagan because it never feels feels like this is an Earnest honest betrayal it feels like a 30 Rock bit like you could take a single clip of this movie have like Alec Baldwin or Tina Fay or anybody anybody from 30d oors like make a cutaway joke about Dennis Quid playing Ronald Reagan you pull a clip from this movie it feels like it fit in there this is not a real movie it's insanely stupid it's not interesting and its target audience I don't even think it's going to work for them I'm sure Reagan is people's president of a specific era the stuff he did stuff he does is very similar to stuff we see in current day candidates and I just don't know if my generation is going to respond to that I know they're not because this is a stupid ugly movie that is poorly made poorly written and stars a bunch of people that are annoying and bad and problematic and I hate that I hate that but at the okay at the same time at the same time I am encouraging people to watch other types of movies I think Hollywood in its initial construct is very opinionated on one side of an argument and you see a lot of like specific filmmakers making their big movies that are of the left so watching something that's like more right leaning I encourage you to do that too you know art is subjective it you take away from it what you want you should always encourage creativity and entertainment of any variety from any type type of filmmaker it's good to have different voices and opinions out there but sometimes especially in like our politically charged times you see something like this that is clearly biased in a very specific way and it becomes very annoying or just very clear that there is no interest in trying to explain things on a deep level from the filmmaker or the actor or anybody involved it's more just we're going to prop our boy up on his big Mighty horse have him right off on the Sunset and say God Bless America we did nothing wrong we broke the Soviet Union you're Ronald Reagan you won and that's what this feels like and that's a damn shame because it could have been more interesting if there was subtlety or Nuance but no who wants that we're an independent Studio that hired John Voit and Kevin Sorbo we're not going to give you subtlety we're not going to give you Nuance we're going to give you exactly what we think you want which is blatant stupidity and lameness that looks bad it's poorly edited and has nothing special to say and that's a shame I love a good political biopic I love talking politics I don't think they talked about any of the good politics in here they really washed over a lot I've been going for 20 minutes about this movie are you kidding me we got to stop we got to stop there's no reason there's no reason in 2024 I should be spending this much time talking about a Ronald Reagan biopic that's from an independent studio with actors I don't like what am I doing with my life I chose to do this I chose to see this I put money in man so Reagan I'm going to give a two out of 10 now thank you all for watching this review be sure to like And subscribe to the channel as always you can check me on Instagram Tik Tok and Twitter and of course I will catch you in the next one have fun F stay safe good luck [Music]