Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Apprentice’ on VOD, The Origin Story Of Donald Trump

It’s with a deep sigh that I sat down to watch The Apprentice (now streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video), the Donald Trump biopic that no one really wants and no one really needs. Which isn’t to say the movie’s no good – director Ali Abbasi (Border) and actors Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong and Maria Bakalova comprise an impressive assemblage of talent, and they’re all game to jump into the deep end of 1970s and ’80s New York City to recreate the key developmental years of a real estate tycoon, reality TV star and future President. But man, this movie feels not only like a too-soon retrospective on modern history, but also a scorching-hot potato, since it’s the subject of legal action (to the surprise of absolutely no one, Trump tried to squash its release) and it inevitably makes us think about all the nasty ugly stupid modern politics that threaten to impede on our sanity in every waking moment. Our only hope is that The Apprentice is occasionally funny, I guess.

THE APPRENTICE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s 1973. We hear Nixon on TV proclaiming himself to not be a criminal. Donald Trump (Stan) drives himself in his Cadillac boat to the dumpy apartment complex his father owns, Trump Village, to shake down old ladies and mentally ill people for rent money. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it, I guess, and by the way, the mere thought of Donald Trump driving a car like a normal human being is surreal, so seeing it, even in fictionalized form, is kinda nuts. We also get to see Donald constantly futzing with his hair, having sex, dialing his own telephone, dressing himself and all the things a person might do, and it’s hard to watch. Is this guy an actual person? Abbasi and Stan must be indulging grand artistic license.  

Anyway. The reputation of Donald’s last name at least affords him access to a swank-ass private club, where he meets Roy Cohn (Strong), Nixon pal and lawyer to mafia dons. Roy invites him to the big boys’ table, and Donald soon realizes this guy can help him, in two ways: One, Roy could fight the civil-rights suit Donald and his Jabba the Hutt of a father Fred (Martin Donovan) face, alleging that they wouldn’t rent to Black people. And two, Roy can help Donald achieve his dream of building a grand hotel, thus establishing himself as a big shot businessman outside the umbrella of his father. Donald has daddy issues, see – Fred is domineering and doesn’t hesitate to belittle Donald, who responds with petulance. Roy and Donald become palsy-walsies, establishing the mentor-mentee relationship Donald never had with his father. Roy gives Donald some advice: Always be on the attack, admit nothing and deny everything, never admit defeat, etc. Sounds prescient, doesn’t it? 

Donald is a socially awkward fella who doesn’t quite fit in at Roy’s wild parties; we see him wandering around by himself amidst wild revelry, opening a door and seeing Roy getting railed by another man. Strange, how Roy earlier was so cruelly dismissive of gay people. Roy helps Donald get the hotel built, using blackmail to score a major tax abatement. Donald meets his eventual wife Ivana (Bakalova), who isn’t too receptive to Roy’s insistence that she sign an insulting prenup. Roy tells Donald things like you create your own reality, and leads by example with an ask-forgiveness-not-permission-then-skip-the-ask-forgiveness-part philosophy. Then Roy catches Ivana’s bouquet at the wedding reception.

By the mid-’80s, Roy and Donald have pretty much swapped places. Donald sits on piles of money while Roy’s general influence has faded. Roy’s also not looking too healthy these days, but he’s healthy enough to advise against Donald’s idea of building a casino in Atlantic City. Donald doesn’t listen. He does all the talking now. And he talks fast, because he’s addicted to diet pills (read: speed). Donald is dismissive of his pathetic drunk of a brother Freddy (Charlie Carrick). Donald sexually brutalizes Ivana when she dares to accuse him of going bald. Donald and Roy have a falling out and stop speaking to each other. Weirdly, by this point, we don’t like either of these guys, but for some reason, it’s kind of sad that their friendship fractures. Can anyone here deal with these complicated feelings? And who would want to put themselves in the position to even face that question in the first place?  

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Vice was a more evisceratingly satirical portrait of a monster of a politician. Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn is a revealing documentary about the closeted creep. And HBO miniseries The Comey Rule featured Brendan Gleeson as Trump.

Performance Worth Watching: Stan and Strong do damn good work here, finding some humanity in these guys, even if the performances ultimately feel like more complicated versions of SNL-style parody. That leaves Bakalova’s inspired depiction of Ivana to engage our sympathies so we feel a little less icky about watching this movie.

Memorable Dialogue: Roy to Donald, when the latter is getting fitted for a new suit: “You have kind of a big ass, you know that? You gotta work on that.”

Sex and Skin: A couple of women get naked as they service Donald’s primal needs. (Advice: Just keep telling yourself it’s Sebastian Stan, and you’ll get through it.)

Our Take: The Apprentice is ultimately a curiosity: Thoughtful and inspired in its direction, engaging in its visual textures and featuring fully committed performances from its primary cast. It’s a good movie, more than merely watchable, and I was engrossed for the aforementioned reasons. But it struggles to justify its existence. Abbasi seems to be prompting his audience to reflect on How We Got Here, but the film succumbs to a case of tell-me-something-I-don’t-know-itis.

It’s easy to joke about a walking logo/caricature like Trump exhibiting legit human emotions, especially considering his villain status in modern politics (many people seem to like him because he’s a villain). But it’s no surprise to see him, fictionalized or not, struggle with a bevy of familiar insecurities that explain his vanity and ego. The film explores the origins of the crass, selfish philosophies that ate away at his humanity, and it makes clean and easy sense in this context. Is it really so simple? 

Maybe it is that cut and dried. But as fascinating as it can be to watch Stan and Strong play men so casually slipping into moral compromise, the film ultimately feels toothless, and staid in its drama. There’s no tension here, just inevitability. Is Abbasi trying to make a cautionary tale? It’s not spoof or satire, or a fawning hagiography like Reagan, or a brutal takedown. It does show Trump crying, for what that’s worth, possibly so we can wonder if he’s even capable of that now. I walked away thinking about the relationship Donald and Roy had, how it reflects the need for humans to connect with each other, and the irony that what bonded them – their need to win, win, win, even if they don’t – ultimately pulled them apart. It’s ultimately pathetic. It also had global repercussions that we’re pretty much forced to think about constantly. 

Our Call: Anyone else tired of thinking about this stuff constantly? Me too. So I say SKIP IT, but it might be worth watching once the psychic inflammation of the Trump-infected world goes down.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.