In the 70s before taking on his aspirations to become president of the United States, Donald Trump was helping grow his father’s real estate business. However as a dire lawsuit flames up under the Trumps, Donald Trump is taken under the wing of lawyer Roy Cohn to mold him into a raw, cut throat businessman and how he can win (just about anything) if he bends the rules far enough. The Apprentice comes from director Ali Abbasi and writer Gabriel Sherman, and while capturing the mentorship between Cohn and Trump, also attempts to paint a satirical portrait on how the real estate mogul became the man he is today.

 

Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump is honestly kind of incredible, getting the iconic speech patterns and mannerisms down to a T, while Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn is quite tricky. There’s a great stage presence here with Strong, but the film’s choices revolving around Cohn don’t exactly allow Strong to shine, or deliver something distinctive from his performance as Kendall Roy. However, the two do bounce off each other in a fun and charismatic way that keeps the runtime flowing smoothly.

 

There's a quality missing when it comes to the film’s satire, seemingly meant to be pointed yet coming off unsharpened. While it wants to show how Donald Trump became who he is today, there’s little to no bite in the condemnation of Trump despite the film showing him doing horrible things. It’s a film that’s focused on being very by-the-facts, however is incredibly confused on which facts actually matter for the story being told. There are times where certain political figures show up as if its an MCU cameo, and while it wants to showcase the important connections between these figures and Trump, it feels like a glorified “Guess Who” game - casting these characters aside after one or two quick scenes. Not to mention, the weird and uncomfortable portrayal when it came to showing Roy Cohn’s sexuality and his eventual death to HIV/AIDS. While I understand wanting to point out the complicated hypocrisy of Cohn and his own response to the crisis during the Reagan administration, it comes across as irresponsible, mean spirited, and oddly homophobic and reckoned poorly with the walking contradiction that was Roy Cohn.

 

Though The Apprentice take aim at showing how horrible and vile people become the way they are, the film’s delivery of these ideas comes across as merely lazy and toothless. Though Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong carry through their performances with significant ease, the film around them doesn’t quite pull as much effort. This results in a rather dull feature that doesn’t offer anything particularly profound or thought provoking about Trump.