‘The Independent’ Review: John Cena, Jodie Turner-Smith and Brian Cox in Tepid Political Thriller (original) (raw)
Ann Dowd co-stars in Peacock's account of a corrupted U.S. presidential faceoff that could break the country's two-party gridlock.
John Cena in 'The Independent' NBCUniversal
You can’t fault Peacock for its timing, dropping The Independent just a week before the all-important 2022 midterm elections. Nor can you quibble with the thriller’s grounding in our contemporary political reality, in which an inexperienced celebrity candidate can vault from long shot to frontrunner simply by offering a seemingly viable exit from America’s entrenched two-party stasis, with one side fueling the country’s rage while the other “sits on its hands and whines about it.” Whether election-fatigued audiences will have an appetite for this slick but superficial depiction of moral elasticity in politics and beleaguered truth in journalism remains an open question.
This first narrative feature from documentary director Amy Rice (HBO’s By the People: The Election of Barack Obama) is sturdy enough by the standards of most direct-to-streaming movie premieres. But that’s admittedly not a high bar to clear. While it zips along with pleasingly brisk economy in the expository establishing scenes, newcomer Evan Parter’s Black List screenplay indulges in too many movie-ish contrivances to offer a genuinely provocative spin on Beltway shenanigans.
The Independent
The Bottom Line Watchable if not exactly rippling with tension.
Release date: Weds., Nov. 2
Cast: Brian Cox, Jodie Turner-Smith, Luke Kirby, Ann Dowd, John Cena, Stephen Lang
Director: Amy Rice
Screenwriter: Evan Parter
1 hour 47 minutes
The film’s other issue is an uneven principal cast. No one’s complaining about Brian Cox bringing his growly, no-BS authority to a veteran Washington political columnist handed one last bombshell scoop on the way out of a crumbling free-press institution. Likewise, Ann Dowd as a tough but pragmatically savvy Republican senior senator from Tennessee (think Marsha Blackburn with a backbone and a brain), aiming to be the first woman in the Oval Office.
But as an enterprising reporter hungry to graduate from the back page and an independent candidate on a “Country Over Party” ticket, respectively, Jodie Turner-Smith and John Cena lack the range to bring much shading to two key characters.
Barreling through the setup as a campaign rally speech was an efficient idea. Nate Sterling (Cena) is a former decathlon athlete and Olympic gold medalist who has shaken up the race with his bestselling manifesto, A Declaration of Independence. His human touch and habit of relating everything through the disillusioned yet still hopeful eyes of his unseen 21-year-old daughter have made Sterling a plausible alternative to Dowd’s Patricia Turnbull, who has gained traction by courting moderate voters; and lame-duck Democratic incumbent, President Archer (Victor Slezak), a character so underdrawn he’s irrelevant.
After entering politics just a year earlier, Sterling paints a bleak but all-too-familiar picture of a nation hurting badly from two long, costly wars; a major recession; a deadly global pandemic; classrooms getting shot up; climate change; and the horrific spectacle of a Capitol under siege. His message is that America always bounces back and must continue to do so for its young people. But doubt remains as to whether an Independent can win in a two-party country, even when his opponents are a lesser-of-two-evils choice.
Over at the thinly veiled stand-in for D.C.’s progressive paper of record, The Washington Chronicle, hard-nosed editor in chief Gordon White (Stephen Lang) warns the assembled staff that the latest in a line of new owners portends a major shakeup, and those who can’t deliver will be out of a job.
While the spineless senior reporters stay silent, ambitious underling Eli James (Turner-Smith) steps forward to propose a story on cuts to education funding forcing a low-income West Virginia school district to switch to four-day weeks. White is skeptical that the general readership cares much about “the banjo-pickers,” but he concedes there might be something in it, snatching the story out from under Eli and assigning it to more seasoned reporters.
Eli catches a break, however, when influential but jaded columnist Nicholas Booker (Cox) recognizes her talent. He’s juggling a messy divorce and constant TV political pundit bookings while quietly planning his retirement right after the election. He recruits her to be his backup on the remaining weeks of his column, promising to lobby for her elevation before he vacates his desk. Eli finally finds herself in a position to impress, even if her access to privileged information through her romantic relationship with Sterling campaign strategist Lucas Nicoll (Luke Kirby) creates tension at home.
The film is absorbing enough even if there’s little visual distinction beyond standard dark-and-moody, and it relies too much on Jessica Rose Weiss’ score to lend weight both to emotional moments and to accelerating intrigue that never quite amounts to suspense. Director Rice gets the job done but is no Alan J. Pakula.
Mostly, the plotting just seems too easy as Eli connects the dots of an anomalous downturn in lottery jackpots — unheard of in a recession — with school budget cuts, big campaign donors and shadowy Super PACs. There’s also a touch of the schematic in Eli’s career hanging in the balance while she navigates a tricky situation with Lucas and her adored activist dad (Willie C. Carpenter) undergoes cancer treatment. Parter’s dialogue is occasionally on the nose, as in Booker questioning if Sterling’s candidacy is a vanity run: “We’ve seen what happens when a narcissist with no experience turns delusions of grandeur into reality.” Clang.
Even with a mild American accent that comes and goes, Turner-Smith is fine in the pivotal role though she never quite conveys the driving resourcefulness that makes Eli an underestimated force to be reckoned with. Cena is similarly adequate but not much more. He does have the wholesome, relatable quality, not to mention the physical presence, to be believable as an overnight political star in an arena where appearances matter more than substance.
The film sparks to life whenever Cox unleashes his bulldog persona or when Dowd reveals the wily player behind the smug bully, a character drawn with welcome even-handedness. Lang is suitably gruff as a lifetime newspaper man whose ethics have eroded while he eyed the bottom line and the shifting tides of his imperiled profession. And the always terrific Kirby is solid in another underwritten role.
All this makes The Independent passably entertaining, even if the fourth-act bait-and-switch registers less as a shocking twist than a mechanical revelation. On the heels of so much television devoted to wading in the swamp of national politics and the compromises of journalism — from Veep to House of Cards to The Newsroom — it takes more incisive writing to do anything but confirm our collective cynicism about electioneering chicanery or make us believe in the capacity for heroics in journalism.
Full credits
Distribution: Peacock (Sky Cinema in U.K.)
Production companies: Park Pictures, Anonymous Content, Next
Cast: Brian Cox, Jodie Turner-Smith, Luke Kirby, Ann Dowd, John Cena, Stephen Lang, Timothy Busfield, Margaret Odette, Frederick Weller, Andrew Richardson, Michael Gandolfini, Alysia Reiner, Willie C. Carpenter, Kecia Lewis, Damian Young, Victor Slezak
Director: Amy Rice
Screenwriter: Evan Parter
Producers: Ryan Cunningham, Evan Parter, Sam Bisbee, Theodora Dunlap, Caddy Vanasirikul
Executive producers: Laura Grange, Julia Stuart, Brian Cox, Jodie Turner-Smith, John Cena, Blair Ward, Anders Erdén, Eric Harbert, Alastair Burlingham, Gary Raskin, Bill Kiely, Whitney Moehle, Michael Arrieta, Marc Danon, David Robbins, Lex Miron, Amy Jarvela, Charles Stiefel, Brian O’Shea, Giovanna Trischetta, Nat McCormick, Jackie Kelman Bisbee, Lance Acord, Cody Ryder
Director of photography: David Johnson
Production designer: Nick Francone
Costume designer: Elisabeth Vastola
Music: Jessica Rose Weiss
Editor: Gershon Hinkson
Casting: Eyde Belasco
1 hour 47 minutes
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