Movie Review: Reagan (2024)

Genre: Biography  

Director: Sean McNamara  

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller, Jon Voight, Mena Suvari  

Running Time: 141 minutes  

Synopsis: A veteran Soviet KGB agent (Jon Voight) recounts his long history tracking the career of Ronald Reagan (Dennis Quaid). He was first noticed by the Soviets in the 1940s when his Hollywood acting career faded but he ascended to the presidency of the actors' union and pushed back against communist sentiments. Upon retiring from acting he turned his attention to politics, studiously learning about the Soviet threat and running for Governor of California with the support of his wife Nancy (Penelope Ann Miller). By the 1970s the White House beckoned, with Reagan focused on winning the Cold War.

What Works Well: Enough incidents are packed into the life of one man to maintain basic engagement.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite huffing and puffing for 141 minutes, this inept hagiography reduces Reagan's life to quips and soundbites signifying nothing. The script deftly avoids any meaningful probing of the man's skills, dilemmas, coalition building talents, political acumen, and shortcomings. Instead, recreations of newsreel highlights and photographs are soullessly stitched together, with plastic mimicry mistaken for acting and cringe-inducing dialogue crowding out substance. Reagan is simplified into a caricature image (communists bad, nuclear weapons bad), with his most famous words written by others, and the KGB perspective is wasted on adversarial reverential worship.

Key Quote:

Reagan (to Soviet leader Gorbachev): As I see it, we don't mistrust each other because we're armed. We're armed because we mistrust each other.

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