The Apprentice

4 outta 5

The Apprentice is the biographical film about the early days of Donald Trump that shows nasty events and rich people being terrible. Biographical movies come with a disclaimer that this was based on real events, but certain events and names have been fictionalized. That disclaimer is usually at the end of the credits, but here that disclaimer is pretty much the first thing on screen. Probably because the filmmakers want to explicitly state that it’s a fictional retelling, but it is also rather apt because the movie trades in more than a few Awards bait clichés. Heck even the story about the young gullible man who learns the ways of the dark side from an older evil mentor is Anakin Skywalker and Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars except swap them out for Donald Trump, Roy Cohen in 1970s/80s New York doing shady scams. Sebastian Stan, the lead actor playing Trump, is such a charismatic performer that it’s kind of hard to hate him until the end when he starts doing truly heinous stuff, which was probably the point.

In the 1970s, slumlord Donald Trump (Stan) is trying to build a new landmark in New York City as his dad, Fred (Martin Donovan) is being prosecuted for racist housing practices. To get them out of the jam, Donald turns to the amoral lawyer, Roy Cohen (Jeremy Strong). Cohen is a hard-living sort who teaches Donald how to present as a well-off man, with a lot of lying and suing everyone. Meanwhile, Donald begins a relationship with beautiful model, Ivana (Maria Bakalova) while he is getting visits from his increasingly intoxicated brother, Freddy (Charlie Carrick). Although with his financing dwindling, and his relationship with his mentor Roy and now wife Ivana souring, Donald must make fast moves to put his dream of Trump Tower together.

Stan as the lead shows an evolution of Donald of someone who is eager, earnest and pleasant at the start. But, as he learns more evil, his cadence becomes more rambling as he can compliment and disparage people in a single long sentence. Whenever he is asked anything that is vaguely even negative towards him, he immediately will dismiss and change the topic. The way he treats his brother who clearly needs help is disgusting. Carrick shows Freddie is falling apart but Donald just hands him a wad of cash and tells him to go to a hotel. The way that Donald can be so uncaring is shown by the way his father treats him, and Donovan as the elder Trump constantly shoots down anything his son talks about. And later when Fred Trump is feeble from his mind going, Donald tries to get his dad to sign away cash to keep Donald’s business afloat. Bakalova as Ivana emotionally shows a person who is slowly worn down by Donald’s abuse as he goes from in love with her to despising and assaulting her, although her character arc from model to bitter trophy wife is a well-worn trope by this point.

The title of the film, while also simultaneously a reference to Trump’s reality show, is also about the mentor and apprentice relationship between the impressionable Donald and the fixer Cohen. Strong is solid as Cohen, proudly proclaiming that people call him the devil and yelling one should never admit defeat. He doesn’t mind scaring people with underhanded legal tricks, saying he has been charged multiple times and nothing stuck. He is giving young Donald the various tricks of how to succeed, at one point giving him a bunch of alcohol Donald can’t handle. Cohen even proudly shows off his network of surveillance equipment he uses to catch people in compromising positions. He says one must do anything to protect democracy in America, saying he sent people to the death penalty for treason. He is an absolute bastard and Trump absorbs all of his teachings as an eager sponge, and by the end, years later, when talking to his Ghost Writer about the “Art” of the deal, Trump reiterates his master’s teachings, word for word.

There is a standard awards movie bait in the second half that leans into a few cliches. As Trump becomes more prominent, Cohen becomes more irrelevant. As the AIDS crisis in the 1980s becomes more pronounced, Cohen’s close associate succumbs to the disease. Cohen tries to put his friend up in a Trump hotel but Trump has him thrown out, which enrages Cohen as he splits from Donald. In an awesomely bitter scene, Cohen rips into Trump saying he was the one who made him. The arc of a mean guy who gets sick and is weak and pathetic in the finale (even being rolled along in a wheelchair by his old friend) is played out so it doesn’t quite resonate and feels a little like mandatory awards bait.

In the end, The Apprentice is a savage takedown, presenting the devolution of Donald over the years, culminating in a graphic scene of him undergoing scalp and liposuction surgery that shows he is as much a fraud as the nonsense he spouts. The film may trade in a few cliché biodrama tropes, but it’s a compelling watch of an eager learner becoming a sleazy phony, as he falls into a world of fakeness that he always wanted to be a part of.