Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

DarthVoorhees 'Primary Colors' holds up well. It's a trip of 90's nostalgia and yet it's questions and themes are still very relevant in the Trump age. It takes us back to a simpler time when our gravest concern was Clinton's promiscuity. I like the dilemma of the film as to whether our lead character Henry Burton can look past the fact that the Clinton standee is a reprehensible scumbag to embrace his ability to win voters. I feel as if it's the crux of being a liberal in this country. The cast is what sells the film because there is so much danger of venturing off into caricature here. For the most part I think the film navigates that tight rope pretty well. The main stand out is Travolta in arguably his career best performance. His Jack Stanton challenges the audience as we can at both times appreciate and loath him. Travolta is particularly good at showing that so much of the character is a facade. The best scene is when he flips out in a restroom after getting some bad news. Emma Thompson is also excellent as Jack's long suffering wife Susan who while angry at her husband is willing to buckle down and withstand his many character faults if it means having her ambitions fulfilled.It's a very on the nose movie. I'll compare it to a later(but much worse) Nichol's film, Charlie Wilson's War. Both films are politically charged but there is a nuance to them that Nichols really doesn't seem to appreciate at times. He is fortunate in that Adrian Lester really is wonderful at relaying the conflict his character is going through. There's an ending to the film that I feel must have been added in post-production where the moral dilemma is for lack of a better word resolved. He should have left the audience hanging.

iamtheeye-82-615479 Without question one of the finest performances of John Travolta's career (still think he should have at least been nominated for an Oscar for "Get Shorty" and of course "Battlefield Earth"...I joke, but the former I am very serious about). The film is a loosely based depiction of the 1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign and adapted from the novel under the same name. This film has it all, a seasoned cast under the guidance of the late and great Mike Nichols. A great script filled with witty dialogue and top-notch execution by each of the actors. I am not at all surprised by the performances especially since Nichols came from the theater scene before transitioning to films. You really get to glimpse into how a campaign unfolds and the scrutiny under which you're put upon. This film, while serious at times, is really quite hilarious. Films such as "Game Changer" and TV shows such as "VEEP" and Amazon's "Alpha Dog" owe a lot to this particular piece because it really paved the way for funny, quasi-serious political narratives. Billy Bob Thornton and Kathy Bates were amazing but without question the star as mentioned at the top was John Travolta. He was BRILLIANT!! A very underrated performance. The only reason why I didn't give it 10 stars was Emma Thompson. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy her work but her accent was all wrong. It was just too forced and not believable. A tiny thing to ding on a film but it wasn't perfect but yet it almost was.

policy134 I am not an American but I truly learned about American politics from the time Bill Clinton took office. I also learned about the incredible power that television media began to accumulate during the early 90s.This is a film about both. I will not say that I learned much new about politics or the media. It was all brilliantly covered by the real newscasts. Bill Clinton was a major celebrity and also a good politician.This movie is not really about Clinton, though, as others have pointed out. It's about morals and how they are almost always compromised when it comes to politics. This is of course brilliantly captured with the Libby Holden character, played by the incomparable Kathy Bates.I do, however think that the film is too flawed to recommend. It has too much emphasis on the affairs of Jack Stanton, and I know why so much of the running time was spent on that. It's because Clinton/Stanton is or was a basically decent politician with one serious flaw. But in the end this flaw is milked and milked and milked to the point where I thought: "Okay, I get it!". As a consequence, several characters, who I thought deserved more development, were left hanging, like Billy Bob Thornton's and Maura Tierney's.It's a good enough film but it could have been more.

classicalsteve Over 20 years before a film like Primary Colors could even be conceived, a young Italian heart-throb was breaking box office records with a film which defined the Disco era: the film was Saturday Night Fever, and the movie star was John Travolta. The year: 1977. Fast-forward 20 years. Disco was over, and the New York suburbanite whose career declined in the 1980's, often labeled a one-trick pony, had a resurgence in the 1990's. Travolta went from movie star to actor, and Primary Colors is no question Travolta's best effort.Rather than playing a New York street-smart and club hustler, Travolta dons the garb of a cheeky Midwestern politician, Jack Stanton, a Midwest governor who rings a helluva lot like Bill Clinton. His auspicious wife, Susan Stanton (played stride-for-stride by the incomparable Emma Thompson) has the intelligence and no nonsense drive which rings a lot like Hillary Clinton. Together, they are on the road to capture the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. Adrian Lester in a superb and entirely convincing performance plays the straight man Henry Burton, a new-comer to the campaign. Throughout the entire film, we see the Stantons through Burton's eyes, which are at first enthralled, smitten, and eventually disillusioned with not only the shortcomings of Jack Stanton but the entire political process.Burton is pulled into the process even before he has committed himself. He accompanies Stanton on all the primary stops, staying in cheap hotels and constantly eating out. At one point he says he's never been involved in a political campaign, to which Susan Stanton replies "Neither have we." He sets up speech venues, and campaign headquarters. He also makes a few blunders along the way, neglecting to be informed about an appearance by one of their opponents. Stanton is so livid, he throws his cell phone out the window. Stanton seems to have all the qualities for making a good presidential candidate. He is highly intelligent yet personable at the one-on-one level. He is an effective debater and speaker. And he has a winning personality that the electorate can admire, even adore. But Stanton has a secret. When given the chance to engage in an extra-marital affair, he can't seem to stop himself. As the campaign progresses, Stanton's sexual history starts to come to the fore. Burton, Richard Lemmons the campaign manager (Billy Bob Thorton), and private investigator Libby Holden (Kathy Bates) must do their best to pick up the pieces and clean up for Stanton. Or at the least, they have to figure out what the press might find and beat them to it, like a wild boar stocking prey as they are characterized.All the leads and supports are par excellence. The unexpected stand-out of the cast is John Travolta who really captured the mannerisms, gestures, and speech of Bill Clinton, a.k.a. Jack Stanton. He really seems a Midwestern WASP rather than an NY Italian. Because the rest of the cast is so strong, the cast keeps up with Travolta line-for-line. High marks go to Adrian Lester as the campaign organizer Henry who loses first his girlfriend, then later his sense of morality when he signs onto the campaign. Emma Thompson can't be beat as Susan Stanton, a.k.a. Hillary Clinton. Billy Bob Thorton's character is essentially James Carvill, the southern democrat who was Clinton's campaign manager, the equivalent of Karl Rove.Unlike many other industrialized countries, the US electorate desires their politicians to have relatively clean records in areas which have nothing to do with politics. Extra-marital affairs are absolutely taboo for US Presidents yet very common among leaders in Europe. (I've heard having a mistress is a prerequisite for the Prime Minister of France.) Stanton is essentially Bill Clinton by another name. Clinton was and is a brilliant politician, but he couldn't keep his pants zipped while campaigning for and occupying national office. But somehow he made it work.