‘The Apprentice’ Grips as a Telling of Roy Cohn’s Monstrous Bond With Donald Trump

Alci Rengifo

American history is littered with monsters, quite a few of whom wore suits and ties while walking down the halls of power. Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice” is a portrait of a friendship between two consequential figures of our recent history, both cloaked in eternal infamy. Donald J. Trump may currently be the most talked about figure in the United States, having already been president for only one term and presiding over and continuing to fuel the deepest social divide in this country since the Civil War. Such personalities don’t just form overnight. In this perversely fascinating yet ultimately human film, Abbasi looks behind the image of Trump to find Roy Cohn. While alive, Cohn was just as loathed and steeped in influence. Per “The Apprentice,” his guidance formed Trump into the loud bulldozer we now know.

In mid 1970s New York we meet a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) still living under the shadow of his developer father, Fred Trump (Martin Donovan). One night, while taking a bored date to an exclusive Manhattan club, Trump comes under the gaze of Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). Long famous as a brutal lawyer who got his start as Joe McCarthy’s right arm during the Red Scare witch trials, and then helped send the Rosenbergs to the electric chair, Cohn now snakes around New York’s upper and lower crust. Trump approaches Cohn about representing his father’s company in a current legal standoff with the city. For the litigator it is a chance to take this upstart under his wing. What Cohn begins is a mentor process, introducing Trump to his private, debauched world where truth can be whatever he decides to say it is. The point is to always win, even when it appears you have lost. Keep attacking and admit nothing. As the dark tutelage continues, Trump also meets and falls for “Ivana” (Maria Bakalova), a Czech model with scrappy appeal.

“When I first looked at these characters and read the first version of the script, I was fascinated by how different their value set is from mine,” Abbasi told Entertainment Voice, “but at the same time I completely understand what they’re doing. I have empathy at points with them and feel for them as human beings. I think their pain is real. I think their joy is real. That creates this morally ambiguous, complex situation.” 

Abbasi’s work is a gallery of outsiders or disturbed psyches. The Iranian-Danish director’s breakthrough, “Border,” imagines a customs officer who belongs to another species finally meeting her pair. His great 2022 thriller, “Holy Spider,” tells the true story of a serial killer in Iran driven by compulsion and messianic madness. “The Apprentice” enters the same territory of films like Oliver Stone’s “W.,” in challenging us to recoil and empathize at the same time with its characters. Viewers who have read much on Trump and Cohn, or watched documentaries like “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” will probably know this narrative’s timeline already, but what Abbasi does is give it layered dramatic life. Stan and Strong are not wax copies of news images. They operate like two individuals with no idea of how history will ultimately judge them.

You don’t need to know much about the two men to be pulled into this film’s storytelling. Abbasi directs with punk energy, opening with “Anti, Anti, Anti” by Consumers to frame late ‘70s New York as a hotbed of crime and ambition. The screenplay, by journalist Gabriel Sherman, then develops a great character arc that is almost seductive. In the first act, we empathize with Trump as a young man collecting rent from his father’s tenants, looking embarrassed when Cohn mocks him for not being a drinker. Though famously misogynist, younger Trump looks intimidated by Cohn’s clandestine circle of gay friends and young lovers. He scatters away at a wild party where he walks in on Cohn having an orgy, surrounded by cocaine and other drugs of choice. For Cohn, sex is mere release and control. He is a cold survivor who openly uses homophobic slurs and takes hard conservative stances – because power is his real fuel. Trump, by comparison, is so ignorant he doesn’t recognize Andy Warhol when the famous artist strikes up a conversation during one of Cohn’s parties.

Fascinating additional profiles decorate the world surrounding Trump and Cohn, which help develop our own understanding of why they are as they are. Trump’s older brother, Freddy (Charlie Carrick), falls out of favor for choosing to be an airline pilot, and the family’s toxicity grinds him down into alcoholism. Trump may genuinely care for him, yet he is quickly learning that even family can be discarded. Fiery Ivana, with that Eastern European bluntness, excites Trump and might even be good for him. Then Cohn intervenes with his warnings to not trust this interloper, arranging a very vicious prenup. The Maria Bakalova of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” vanishes in this career-best performance. “I found it not difficult to be empathetic with her to be honest,” Bakalova tells Entertainment Voice. “We shared a similar path. We’re both from Eastern Europe, coming from communist countries. When you grow up in a place like this you develop the mindset that you have to prove yourself and there’s no one to back you up. Even if I fall in love, I want to be treated equally. If you’re this glamorous, shining person, I want to be right next to you, not below.”

When tackling a film like this, the lead cast carries the weight of bringing to life personalities we all know. It is a gamble considering Trump is very much alive and currently seeking reelection. His legal team issued a cease and desist order to Abbasi’s team, so despite playing at festivals like Cannes it was down to the wire when a release date was confirmed. Yet, even Trump or Roy Cohn in hell would find it hard to deny how good the acting is in “The Apprentice.” Sebastian Stan is another actor readily associated with genre films and Marvel, where he plays Bucky Barnes. His Trump is no imitation, but instead a real person driven by hidden fears and insecurities. His own inferiority complexes make a dangerous brew when, with Cohn’s help, he starts building the projects that will make his name, like the Grand Hyatt in 1980. Cohn’s techniques serve useful when improvising for the press, weaseling out of regulations and eventually sniffing at politics. Ivana will soon bore him. When he gains weight he dismisses the doctor’s advice to just exercise. Shadows of the future, cartoonish president subtly emerge. Even more darkly, he eventually rapes Ivana one night out of rage at being told the bitter truth. 

Yet, the real powerhouse is Jeremy Strong, who is taking on a role that has been inhabited by major players before. Cohn is such a natural villain that he has always been an instant attraction for drama. James Woods played him in a 1992 HBO movie, “Citizen Cohn,” and Al Pacino delivered an unforgettable, award-winning take for the same studio’s 2003 adaptation of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.” Strong, who became famous for inhabiting the rot of corporate culture in “Succession,” evokes the reptilian aura of Cohn as well as his inner loneliness. This is a man with no real friends. He sees potential in Trump but one also gets the sense he likes having him around for genuine, non-sexual company. The tragedy is someone like Cohn tends to poison anything he touches and, eventually, Trump will painfully bite back when the AIDS epidemic affects Cohn’s life. Strong surely deserves awards consideration. He taps into what makes Cohn alluring with his insider knowledge and do or die attitude. He scoffs at the law, instructing Trump on how going to court is all about crushing the other side. If you need to wiretap, bribe or blackmail then so be it. Ethics are merely a feel good pill.

“These are punk rock characters. Mr. Trump is a punk rock character,” says Abbasi. “I’m trying to match their energy and so we’ll see how it goes.” His film is a great profile because in many ways, it is also a portrait of the American ethos, not only of the Reagan ‘80s, but today in our late stage capitalism existence. Trump and Cohn are frightening because they also cast a mirror image that bluntly states, without a care, what our modern society truly believes in but cloaks in nicer language. The cinematography, by Kasper Tuxen, is constantly on the move while switching formats for every decade “The Apprentice” covers. Early years have a ‘70s grain, while the ‘80s have an early videotape texture. The music by Martin Dirkov, David Holmes and Brian Irvine sounds like gothic electronica that mixes with the era’s disco, pop, punk and rock needle drops. This movie always feels alive, because these characters never stop. We are still forced into having to deal with Trump today. “The Apprentice” is about a friendship that now involves us all. 

“The Apprentice” releases Oct. 11 in theaters nationwide.