October surprise

Rod Lurie’s The Contender is an old-fashioned Hollywood political fantasy, updating the grassroots populism of Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington into the 21st century. Sixty years haven’t changed things all that much on the celluloid Capitol Hill; the good guys and bad guys are still clearly labeled, and the U.S. Congress still responds to a scolding with a standing ovation.

Joan Allen plays Laine Hanson, a Democratic senator from Ohio who has been nominated by President Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges) to replace the recently deceased vice president. Opposing her is the Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Sheldon Runyon of Illinois (Gary Oldman), whose own choice for veep is Gov. Jack Hathaway of Virginia (William L. Petersen). Hathaway had been the apparent front-runner for the spot, especially after his valiant but futile attempt to rescue a motorist from a plunge into the Potomac.

Runyon’s chief objection to Hanson seems to be that she’s a former Republican who switched parties—presumably because the GOP had too many men like Runyon in it. This is enough for Runyon to question her “loyalty.” Add to that her stand on abortion rights (she’s for them) and the Second Amendment (against), and the fact that she’s an atheist and—gasp!—a vegetarian. No wonder that for Runyon, bringing Hanson down becomes a crusade. Soon Runyon has his weapon: photos of Hanson engaging in a frat-house gangbang when she was a freshman in college.

Sen. Hanson steadfastly refuses to discuss the photos, which causes President Evans and his chief of staff (Sam Elliott) no end of discomfort. When Evans tries to negotiate with Runyon, Runyon is cool. “We’re both sticking to our guns,” he says, “only mine are loaded.”

Rod Lurie’s script and direction have an aura of insider authenticity that persuades us to swallow some pretty outlandish whoppers: for example, the idea that an avowed atheist who publicly describes the Bible as a “fairy tale” would have a chance in hell of being elected to the Senate, much less nominated for vice president. Or, by extension, that anyone wanting to defeat her would have to dig up a youthful sexual indiscretion to do it. But The Contender only masquerades as a serious issue-centered drama. It’s really a “gotcha” fantasy, and, at that, it’s as consummate a piece of hokum as you’d ever want to see.

Joan Allen projects a kind of scrubbed, schoolmarm rectitude, like a real-world Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way. This freeze-dried nobility works to the film’s advantage. When Laine Hanson says that what happened that night at the frat house is nobody’s business, we believe her. Partly this is because Gary Oldman makes such a hateful, lip-smacking villain that we instinctively side with anyone he’s attacking. But mainly it’s because it’s just about impossible to imagine Joan Allen having sex.

Laine Hanson may be the film’s hallowed center, but the mainspring that keeps us hooked is Jeff Bridges as President Evans. It may be a stretch to believe that Hanson would make it to the Senate, but there’s no problem believing that Jackson Evans would make it to the White House. He has the folksy simplicity of Harry Truman and Lincoln’s good-natured ability to make his adversaries underestimate him. Whether he’s gently haranguing a wayward congressman (Christian Slater) or raging at Hanson over the turns her confirmation hearings are taking, Evans revels in being president of the United States. Bridges is so good at this that Lurie trusts him with delivering the film’s climactic one-two punch—first a major plot twist, then a long thematic statement that, in lesser hands, would sound like a high-school sophomore’s essay on What Democracy Means to Me.

Actually, even in Bridges’ hands, that’s just how the big speech sounds. But by that point, Lurie has us so eager to hear it that we don’t care. The Contender may be hokum, but it’s glossy, crowd-pleasing hokum, and I found it irresistible.