Sunday, May 25, 2008

THIS BLOG POST IS LIMITED TO THE PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES, FOR THE SUBJECT OF HBO MOVIES ABOUT ELECTION LAW GENERALLY PRESENTS MANY COMPLEXITIES: Much like the giddiness I imagine archaeologists must have felt with the 1981 release of Raiders of the Lost Ark, I greatly anticipated and tonight enjoyed the debut of HBO's film Recount, which details the legal battles regarding Florida's electoral votes in 2000. [Okay, I still need to see the first half-hour, but I'm generally aware of what happened.]

Prudence and rules of ALOTT5MA comity dictate that I limit my review to the filmmaking and not my opinions on the underlying subject matter; suffice it to say that this is well-cast, balanced storytelling, and that if you have any interest in seeing it you will find it gripping. No, the ending is no more of a surprise than that in Steve Coll's masterful The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century, which I also completed today, but it's about all the details along the way. Kevin Spacey finally finds a non-sucky role as Gore lawyer Ron Klain, and Ed Begley Jr. is darn-near-unrecognizable as David Boies. On the other side, kudos to Laura Dern for finding something sympathetic in her Katherine Harris portrayal, and given that I enjoy Bob Balaban in just about everything (but especially his Warren Littlefield in HBO's The Late Shift), that appreciation certainly extends to his Ben Ginsburg.

The only weirdness was in both the casting and portrayal of the Supreme Court. Though not as nutty as Boston Legal's take on the nine, at least its justices looked and sounded closer to reality, and having HBO's Stevens and Scalia read to the camera their opinions on the applications for stay was a bit odd.

One final question: we saw an awful lot of team meetings among the lawyers. I don't recall seeing any scene in which lawyers actually sat down and wrote briefs and motions. We do that sometimes, after all. [Also, seriously, the guy who directed the Austin Powers films directed this? Wow. Seems about as likely as Errol Morris helming Larry the Cable Guy's next flick.]

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