'The Apprentice' review: An entertaining character study that comes with the good, the bad and the ugly

In 1972, photographer Robert Frank was given carte-blanche to follow and film The Rolling Stones on their American tour. The result was a film deemed unreleasable by the band, but not because of the overwhelming amount of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll on display. Rumour has it the band banned the film because Frank unblinkingly showed the tedium of life on the road and revealed the real lives of the band members.

It's hardly the high-glam life that would be expected from the “World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band,” but these are the scenes that humanize the group and put a pinprick in the bubble of fame that surrounded the Stones in their glory days.

Director Jim Jarmusch said, “It makes you think that being a rock star is one of the last things you’d ever want to do.”

I mention all of this because I think there is a correlation between the Rolling Stones film (whose title I can’t print here) and “The Apprentice.”

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The Trump campaign unsuccessfully worked to suppress this film, and I would guess - and that’s all this is - they wanted it shelved not because of the harder-edged portrait of Trump in the film’s second half, which falls in line with the candidate’s strongman image, but because of the softer, more humanist tone of the first hour.

When we first meet Trump (Sebastian Stan) he’s a desperate man, going door-to-door in his father’s buildings to collect rents from tenants who clearly loathe him, a lawsuit looms that could potentially bankrupt the Trump family and his brother Freddy is an alcoholic who is slowly losing his battle with the bottle.

Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump in 'The Apprentice'

Enter Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), a lawyer Trump affectionately calls “evil incarnate.” The prosecutor in the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations of suspected communists, he had a fearsome, take-no-prisoners reputation. The lawyer took Trump under his wing, greasing the wheels for him socially and professionally in 1970s New York City.

“You’re the client,” says Cohn, “but you work for me. You do what I say, when I say.”

The ambitious Trump begins as a lump of clay, but is soon molded into an effigy of Roy Cohn, merciless in business and in life.

“The Apprentice” is several things. It’s the making of MAGA. It’s a story of unchecked ambition. It’s a cautionary tale. It’s a period piece of New York City in the go-go 1980s.

Mostly though, it’s an entertaining character study of one of the world’s most famous people that comes with the good, the bad and the ugly.

The good? Stan, who (mostly) avoids doing an “SNL” style Trump caricature. In the last hour, when he has absorbed Cohn’s lessons and the student has surpassed the master, he’s recognizably Trump.

Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan in a scene from the film 'The Apprentice.' (Pief Weyman / Briarcliff Entertainment)

Before that, he is more fully rounded as a character. There are flashes of compassion when he interacts with Freddy, frustration at being under his father’s thumb and vulnerability. When he becomes the blustery Trump we’re more familiar with, it becomes less interesting, but still avoids imitation.

As Cohn, Strong is serpentine, to the point of predatorially flicking his tongue. Eyelids at half mast, he exudes maximum confidence in his ability to control every situation. When the tide turns for him, Strong manages to create empathy for a character who never had any in real life. When he complains to Trump that he’s "lost the last trace of decency you ever had,” the words hit hard.

The bad? While Maria Bakalova, who plays Trump’s first wife Ivana, is credible in the role, it feels a bit cheeky to cast her, given her headline-making encounter with Trump associate Rudy Giuliani in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.”

Maria Bakalova and Sebastian Stan are seen in a scene from the film 'The Apprentice.' (Pief Weyman / Briarcliff Entertainment)

The ugly? The casual venality on display. It’s the kind that powerful people use to intimidate and control the people in their lives, and it is gruesome. It’s an ugly glimpse into the halls of power where cold-blooded mercenaries like Cohn will do anything to win.

There’s also a graphic and cruel scene of sexual assault, unflinchingly captured by director Ali Abbasi’s camera.

Donald Trump dismisses “The Apprentice” as “pure fiction” and for sure it isn’t the whole truth and nothing but the truth. An opening title card acknowledges that, announcing that “some events have been fictionalized for dramatic effect,” but it does capture the tenor of the times and the dynamic between Trump and Cohn. It’s an origin story, and while you may not learn anything new, it paints a potent picture of pure ambition run amok.

3.5 out of 5 stars