Film Project - Movie Review Example

The movie shows the viewers the behind the scenes of a primary campaign. How even though a candidate may belong to a political party, that does not mean that the party will give him the money to run his campaign. It delves into the importance of fund raisers and how without it, a primary presidential campaign will cease to exist. More importantly, the movie shows how the evolution of the news media has changed the road to the White House as most candidates knew it to be. The media as used in the movie is portrayed as both the devil and the angel that politicians need to contend with.

If run by the right kind of people, the media can become the tool towards a landslide election. Used improperly, the media can tank a campaign even before it starts. It also shines light on the little known aspect of the campaign, blackmail, and Jack Stanton, along with his team of media professionals, know exactly how to work the media in the name of a successful blackmail undertaking. However, it also shows that not all media professionals and image makers are cold blooded liars and not all of them can be bought or blackmailed.

Analysis At the beginning of the film, we see Henry Burton, a political campaign specialist who is being drafted to join the presidential campaign of Gov. Jack Stanton. He resists all efforts to join the campaign at the start but is later on won over by the smoothness of the presidential aspirant. He first comes to the campaign headquarters and sees an inefficient machine that could be compared to a rudderless ship. Under his guidance though, he manages to whip them into shape and actually begin to mount a decent primary campaign.

As I watched this portion of the film, I could not help but be reminded of our class lectures in “The Functions and Organizations of the American Party System”. This portion of the film specifically concentrated on the role of the political party and its machinery in the creation of the perfect candidate. The film actually presents enough evidence to support its claims that money is always a problem in any campaign because, as we all know, fund raisers are the life line of any campaign and the wife of the candidate is usually tasked with gaining financial support for her politician husband.

This is clearly presented at the beginning of the film when Gov. Stanton has to calm down his irate wife after he misses a very important fund raiser that was being hosted in his honor. Later on, we are introduced to the character of Libby Holden, image maker bar none. She is embodiment of everything we learned in “Interest Group Structure and Functions”. The minute she arrived at the campaign headquarters, she overturns the apple cart and connected the campaign activities and interests with various interest groups without whom interest and support of these groups for the candidate will not exist.

We also see a glimpse of how these special interest groups can affect a campaign of a candidate identified with them. The latter part of the film presents heavy evidence of the way that the news media has spiraled out of control and is instead more interested in selling scandals about candidates rather than finding out the truth behind the story and presenting those facts instead. I believe that this part of the film falls under