Long Shot (2019)

Film: Long Shot (2019)
Stars: Charlize Theron, Seth Rogen, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Andy Serkis, June Diane Raphael, Bob Odenkirk, Alexander Skarsgard
Director: Jonathan Levine
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

One of the great conundrums of my life is that I love discussing politics (less so in the past two years, but the passion is still there) and I adore movies (more so in the past two years, for reasons unrelated to the political embargo), so it makes sense to assume that I would like movies based on politics, but you’d be mistaken. Movies based on politics almost always tick me off, whether they be played for comedy or for drama, and the reason for that is the realism.  I like my plot to be grounded in some sort of fact, and so if I’m going to see a movie, even one that is meant to be quite silly like Long Shot, I need it to be anchored in some sort of reality, which even in the Trump Era this film simply isn’t.  If that weren’t enough, it’s not particularly compelling or funny even with two actors who are more than capable of being both.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is essentially a romantic comedy with thinly-disguised versions of our current political figures.  We have Charlotte Field (Theron), who is essentially Nikki Haley or Condi Rice, competent to a fault and more qualified for her job than her boss, which the movie is going to have a great time pointing out over-and-over in a weirdly anti-feminist fashion, being romanced by Fred Flarsky (Rogen), a Michael Moore/Jim Acosta-style figure who stands on his virtues as a reason to never get anything done, claiming if you don’t have compromise, you don’t have anything. Field is about to run for president because her boss President Chambers (Odenkirk, doing his best Trump impression), wants to become a movie star, and she is being hounded by Parker Wembley (Serkis) who is some combination of Roger Ailes & Rupert Murdoch.  Throw in Alexander Skarsgard as a creepy Justin Trudeau-style figure, and you have yourself an SNL parody sketch hoping to be a movie.

Unfortunately, it never rises above that sketch premise.  The problem lies in the way the film is written, especially when it comes to Charlotte.  It’s unfortunately plausible at this point to believe a buffoon could be elected president and that a candidate should only focus on the superficial, so Charlotte taking the job in the administration of a man lesser than her is an easily conceivable reality (again, see Condi Rice & Nikki Haley), but where this falls apart is that it never really feels possible that Charlotte would fall not only for Rogen’s character romantically, but that she’d fall for his “no compromise, give up all of your ideals and then everything will be sunny” attitude.  The sexism that they just lightly brush by (the fact that people are only interested in Charlotte’s likeability, beauty, and dating life…the fact that she’s smart-as-a-whip working for a moron), feeds into the notion that she still needs a man to show her how to do her job properly, despite Rogen’s character being a “play my way or I’m going home” sort of strict idealist who also can’t exist in Charlotte’s world. We spend so much of the film critiquing Charlotte, but almost none of it taking an introspective look at Fred. Even Fred’s redemption ark is almost entirely spent on him being told by his best friend (played by Jackson) that she’s gorgeous & famous…you aren’t going to do any better; there’s no self-reflection on his side.  One could claim there’s some feminism at work here if you say that Theron is taking the Richard Gere role while Rogen is playing Julia Roberts, which might be true, but that doesn’t really negate the fact that Rogen fixes all of Charlotte’s “problems” while he never fixes any of his own.

This would be easier to swallow if the movie itself were funnier, but it’s not.  There are some humorous bits (a particularly nasty one about Jennifer Aniston feels a bit sour after seeing the film as it also reads anti-feminist at the time, but it’s a ballsy enough joke that you’ll laugh at regardless), and Theron/Rogen are naturally-gifted comedians, but most of the film relies too heavily on tropes to have a really great, consistent source of humor.  These two are a good match in terms of chemistry, even if it’s eye-rolling that we have to settle for another goddess-meets-shlub idea from Hollywood, but this never finds anything interesting to say, and doesn’t work as a straight-up romantic comedy.