{"id":7685,"date":"2010-02-22T21:08:57","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T05:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=7685"},"modified":"2010-02-22T22:13:29","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T06:13:29","slug":"the-contender-rod-lurie-2000-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=7685","title":{"rendered":"The Contender (Rod Lurie, 2000): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reviewed by <a href=\"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?author=49\">Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.abc.net.au\/articulate\/images\/2008\/11\/06\/bridges.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" style=\"margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; float: left\"\/>\u00a0 Sunday February 14th the SBIFF honored Jeff Bridges,\u00a0and designated it\u00a0as Jeff Bridges Day.\u00a0 It was a full\u00a0days line-up at two theaters, with some of\u00a0his best\u00a0films including <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0208874\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Contender<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>U. S. President Evans (Jeff Bridges) is in a position where he needs to select a new vice-president.\u00a0 He has two candidates to choose from, one squeaky-clean Virginia Governor Jack Hathaway (William Petersen), or Ohio Senator Laine Hanson (Joan Allen) who carries a little baggage from her past.<\/p>\n<p>Although Hathaway had recently been involved in a heroic rescue attempt of a drowning victim, President Evans chooses Hanson as the swan song of his presidency, by being the first to promote a female to high office.<\/p>\n<p>Republican Congressman Shelley Runyon (Gary Oldman) chairs the committee for\u00a0the confirmation hearings.\u00a0 He does not believe that\u00a0Hanson,a Republican turned Democrat,\u00a0is the person best qualified for the job\u00a0and sets out to prove it.\u00a0 He indeed has acquired damaging photos of her, involved in a drunken orgy during her\u00a0sorority days.<\/p>\n<p>When questioned, Hanson refuses to\u00a0answer on grounds that it&#8217;s\u00a0not public\u00a0business, and that\u00a0if she were a man the story would not be as damaging.\u00a0 Runyon is relentless in his questioning, and it is soon exposed that Hanson is also\u00a0a husband stealer!\u00a0 We also\u00a0soon discover that Hathaway has a little dirt on himself as well.<\/p>\n<p>The Contender is an entertaining political drama which earned two Oscar nominations &#8211; for Joan Allen as Best Actress, and Jeff Bridges as Best Supporting Actor.\u00a0 Both are outstanding in their roles, but Gary Oldman shines and never disappoints.\u00a0 This film is far superior to Rod Lurie&#8217;s\u00a0 2008 stinker, Nothing But the Truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. \u00a0 Sunday February 14th the SBIFF honored Jeff Bridges,\u00a0and designated it\u00a0as Jeff Bridges Day.\u00a0 It was a full\u00a0days line-up at two theaters, with some of\u00a0his best\u00a0films including The Contender. U. S. President Evans (Jeff Bridges) is in a position where he needs to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}