Robert
Redford stars as a young Californian lawyer, and the son of the governor of
California, Bill McKay. He is prompted by a sharp-witted political machine
operator (played by Peter Boyle) to enter the primary for Senator of
California. McKay is idealistic and speaks his mind, and doesn’t throw out all
the political mumbo jumbo like politicians are known to do.
Soon
he sees his numbers rise as Boyle works his magic, and he sees he actually has
a chance to win. Soon the machine starts to take over, and the cost of a push
for victory, is McKay losing his political edginess, he no longer speaks his
mind, and he becomes a cookie cutter image of every other two-faced politician
in the game.
The
ending is particularly powerful, when Redford wins the election, and is
congratulated by his father, that he is “a politician now”, and the very end
when he actually wins, he is so confused as to what he will actually do as a
senator. He has lost his purpose which was the only thing he started with, was
his idealistic principles. It’s the very telling story which I’m sure has
happened many times.
The
look at what the pressures are as a politician is very interesting, and the
young idealism fading into shallow materialism, and loss of moral integrity is
very interesting, and very reticent of the 60’s shift into the 70’s. It’s crazy. Endings for older movies,
like this and the ending to Chinatown are very confusing, and seem almost incomplete,
and I’m notsure what the statement is, though I can guess in this case. I give
this movie a 2, cause it is very gripping and interesting.
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