‘Reagan’ Turns the Story of the 40th President Into a Conservative Cult of Personality 

Alci Rengifo

Here, in the land of the free and home of the homeless brave, we like to scoff at enemy or totalitarian states for the way they promote their strongmen. Vladimir Putin’s public stunts (at least before the Ukraine war) make us howl with laughter. North Korea’s regime is a nuclear-armed punchline. A movie like “Reagan” then drops into view and is a sobering reminder that we, like all states, have our own cartoonish mythologies. Director Sean McNamara has made a feature that can literally be called propaganda. The word doesn’t need to be used here as an insult. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, any sober viewer would have to agree this is not a serious, dramatic attempt at dissecting Ronald Reagan, the man or president. It is a daydream designed to promote a specific agenda.

It is a long daydream too, clocking in 2 hours and 15 minutes. To its credit, Reagan does not join the Avengers or put on a cape. This movie does begin, however, like a conservative version of Marvel with an odd, opening credits montage set to images of the Russian Revolution, Lenin and Stalin. McNamara’s idea is to frame the story as the evolution of Ronald Reagan (Dennis Quaid) from Hollywood actor to a political superman obsessed with defeating his arch nemesis, Communism. The chief narrator is Viktor Petrovich (Jon Voight), an aging former KGB official in contemporary Moscow telling Reagan’s life to a young protégé. He calls Ronald “The Crusader,” going over his days as a wholesome lifeguard, then as a B-level actor who becomes head of the Screen Actors Guild. During the McCarthy era, Reagan takes on those evil commies infiltrating Hollywood, as Moscow schemes to take over the unions. He meets and falls for a fellow actor, Nancy Davis (Penelope Ann Miller). Determined to do more, Reagan becomes governor of California during the student unrest of the 1960s. By the late ‘70s, he’s ready for the White House.

Whatever one’s political leanings, there’s little doubt a figure like Reagan would easily merit a movie. His presidency defined the 1980s and the apex of the Cold War. The screenplay by Howard Klausner adapts the 2007 book “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” by Paul Kengor, published at the height of cultural efforts by the right to polish the Reagan image during the George W. Bush years. “Reagan” is itself a total partisan artifact, featuring an endless parade of industry conservatives from Jon Voight to an odd cameo by Creed singer Scott Stapp as Frank Sinatra. Dennis Quaid himself is a firm Trump supporter. Yet, even if the aim here is to portray The Gipper in a positive light, the film could have chosen a better narrative format than a fairy tale that runs too long while saying so little. Young Reagan has little angst but is a heroic lifeguard. He gets advice from Reverend Cleaver (Kevin Sorbo, another diehard conservative). When an exiled Russian gives a talk on what the Orthodox Church is suffering under the Soviet regime, it’s enough to convince Reagan to fight Communism until the end of his days.

As the film chugs along, never does it attempt an intimate view into Reagan as an individual. Left-wing directors like Oliver Stone and Adam McKay inspired right-wing anger with their presidential biopics like “Nixon,” “W.” and “Vice,” but at least you walk out of those movies feeling like you know Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on a more human level. All of Reagan’s dialogue in this movie feels like slogans. When political backers ask why he wants to run for California governor, he mouths a sentence fit for Captain America about the Red Menace. As head of the actor’s union he busts heads and takes on rowdy workers to make sure they don’t get infected by socialism. The approach is so obvious even in McNamara’s casting. Consider a Hollywood dinner party where Reagan argues with left-wing figures like screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who is portrayed as an effeminate liberal stereotype. Trumbo and others were nearly destroyed by the McCarthy witch hunts, which they deserved for being pinkos per this movie. Nancy Reagan is left with no dimensions other than pumping up Ronnie, assuring him his enemies hate him because he represents the stars and stripes.

Dennis Quaid clearly believes heart and soul in this movie’s message. “Reagan was my favorite president,” Quaid told Entertainment Voice. “I voted for him in 1980. I came home and my roommate asked who I voted for. I said ‘Reagan.’ He said, ‘you are kicked out of the hippies.” Quaid’s performance is impressive in the sense that he’s in nearly every scene, pulling off the Reagan accent and making it his own. He’s sincerely into it when watching a Jimmy Carter speech on TV, tossing his remote and bemoaning that “this is the greatest country that has ever existed and everyone seems to forget that.” Once he becomes president, the film skims over any attempt to truly grasp his policies or agenda. All we learn about Reagan’s economic ideas is that he wants to lower taxes, as he emphasizes in one cabinet meeting. Except for his Russian obsession, foreign policy is an afterthought. Of course, this could be owed to how a close look at the Gipper’s exploits abroad paints a darker picture. Never does the movie venture into the invasion of Grenada, the funding of Salvadoran death squads during its civil war or support for Iraq during the war with Iran. Even positive moments as when Reagan forced Israel to stop bombing Beirut to smithereens, are left out. He does profess admiration for the right-wing Contra death squads in Nicaragua, claiming they remind him of George Washington and the Continental Army.

Wait, but the Iran-Contra scandal is indeed included. Not to worry, we learn Ronald was but an innocent, aloof president while his henchmen traded arms for hostages in the Middle East, all the while illegally supplying weapons to our authoritarian allies in Central America. What matters is that Reagan figured out how to beat the Soviets. We just had to outspend them. He explains this to Nancy one night when she declares him a prophetic figure. You see, Ronald learned how to read the tides as a lifeguard, which means he can see into the future while everyone else can’t. We still haven’t dived into how all the Russians in this movie are grumpy, cartoonish villains who only meet in dark rooms, plotting world domination and monitoring Reagan when he’s prayed over by a pastor. Robert Davi is a particularly funny Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev, frustrated and astounded by Reagan’s genius. All that is missing is confirmation Reagan was born under a double rainbow.

“You’ll get to see what this country used to be like and what this country still can be,” is how Quaid described the potential of “Reagan.” That spirit does capture the real aim of the movie. It’s a specific idea about Ronald Reagan being released in the middle of a contentious election season. The screenplay behaves as if Soviet Communism were still in competition with capitalism. Cinematographer Christian Sebaldt lights everything with a glowing, faith-based media style. The music by John Coda is an overcooked, marching score meant to get us to stand and salute. However, Reagan, like all historical figures, left a much more complex legacy. He gutted the social safety net and his Central America policies have contributed to the ongoing migration wave. Meanwhile, Nancy Reagan, his life partner, is kept as an enigma. She was known to consult a psychic in the White House (where is that in the movie?). “Reagan” thus ends not as a real drama about the man, just as another dose of our addiction to red, white and blue myth.

“Reagan” releases Aug. 30 in theaters nationwide.