2011 - THE IDES OF MARCH, sort of interesting politial drama

 George Clooney directs a little better than usual for him.  Clooney also plays a very liberal Democratic governor running in a president primary for the party nomination.  Ryan Gosling is a supposedly idealistic junior campaign manager.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman is Clooney’s campaign manager.  As you can see Clooney pulled together a good cast for this political drama.

The performances are at a high level, the story telling is fairly good for a Clooney film.  In his other films, Clooney has not always been the best judge of the scripts that he picks.  But with the Ides Of March he seems a little more engaged in the plot this time.  Clooney has donated a lot of money to Democratic candidates in past campaigns so he probably knows a thing or two about back room political manipulations.

If there is any criticism of the film, it would have to be of the character Ryan  Gosling plays.  He suddenly seems to switch from political idealist to hardened political operation mostly because of the one indiscretion of the candidate he is trying to get elected.  Also Clooney's very liberal governor seems just a little too over the top politically to be a viable candidate running for president.

Still the film is not without interest.  It didn't do well commercially possibly because the general public is already extremely pessimistic about the political process and doesn't need a film to tell them that.

The film was written by George Clooney, Beau Willimonn and Grant Heslov.  The running time is 101 minutes.