The Apprentice is a frustratingly rote feature far too beholden to cinema's past

Kitty Green’s 2020 film The Assistant concerns a woman working at a film studio for a Harvey Weinstein stand-in. That toxic studio head is kept off-screen. Green’s camera instead chronicles the psychological torment of a working-class woman existing under such a putrid figure. This distinct visual choice subverts American societal norms of always giving precedent to toxic people in power. “Bad boys” in the corporate world are looked at as heroes, not a stinging indictment of the horrors capitalism creates. It’s easier to just exist within corrupt systems rather than challenge them. Our media landscape drapes corrupt rich people everywhere. Heaven forbid we emphasize marginalized lives that could reinforce shortcomings in America.

The Assistant finally shoved toxic wealthy figures entirely out of the frame. Rather than glorifying the 1%, Green concentrated on the psychological turmoil these souls inflict or how systems like HR departments help normalize egregious behavior. I couldn’t help but think of films like The Assistant while watching the Donald Trump origin story The Apprentice. The latest feature from director Ali Abbasi is firmly critical of Trump and, obviously, depiction does not equal endorsement. But not much is gained from focusing on this man’s formative years. The rudimentary execution ultimately makes it yet another movie that finds despicable rich white people far more worthy of the big screen than the oppressed people they hurt.

Taking place in the 1970s, The Apprentice begins with Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) as just the fumbling son of Fred Trump (Martin Donovan). In looking for help in getting himself and his father out of a racially discriminatory housing lawsuit, Trump enlists Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). This fierce prosecutor is known as "Lucifer himself" thanks to infamous actions like shaking down politicians or helping Joseph McCarthy ruin the lives of alleged communists. Cohn and Trump couldn't be a more unlikely pair, but they quickly hit it off. Cohn gradually molds Trump in his image and shows him how to get ahead by being as brutal as possible.

Advice like “never admit defeat” and “the truth is malleable” go from Cohn’s lips to rewiring Trump’s brain. Soon, this former punchline in the Trump household is overseeing a string of bustling casinos and various New York skyscrapers. He’s even got a wife in the form of Ivana Trump (Maria Bakalova), though his father still refuses to fully embrace the son desperate for his approval. Gabriel Sherman's The Apprentice script eventually depicts Donald Trump, though, exceeding even his former master's infamy. A monster has been unleashed that will keep going and going long after Cohn passes away.

The Apprentice's old-school cinematography harkens back to the grainy and dirty imagery of 70s William Friedkin or Alan J. Pakula features chock full of bad people. Unlike those features, though, Sherman’s screenplay filters roughly a decade of Trump’s life into a deeply tidy narrative structure. Said structure follows Trump morphing from wealthy wallflower to uncontrollable loose cannon. All of it is told in a fashion deeply reminiscent of standard historical biopics. This comes complete with predictable third-act plot beats where folks like Cohn gawk at the monster this man’s become. “It’s good to see you’ve lost your last traces of decency,” Cohn barks at Trump in a key climactic sequence.

It's all too formulaic. It’s simply not dramatically involving watching Trump become his inevitable horrific self. The journey getting there is riddled with clumsy moments. Eventually, important figures in Trump’s 2015-onward political activities like Roger Stone have their names unveiled like they’re the alter-egos of superheroes in a Marvel movie. Other scenes, like Trump discovering the term “make America great again”, echo the worst moments from music biopics where an artist stumbles onto the title of a future chart-topper. Not since Origin tried to wring “crowdpleaser moments” out of Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s “gotcha” moments in a slavery argument has a politically conscious movie’s writing felt this miscalculated. The Apprentice needed to focus on upending expectations rather than inspiring "oooooohs" or "I know that!" responses from the audience.

No fire can fester in the belly of Sherman’s writing. He slavishly adheres to this movie’s equivalent of “fan service” and standard storytelling conventions. The Apprentice confronts a human embodiment of distinctly American corruption with minimal subversiveness. This event extends to the cinematography and directing. An early party scene at Cohn's house, unfortunately, establishes these underwhelming visual norms. Donald Trump wanders around a shindig draped in tinted red light and all kinds of debauchery. Trump even steps over a man lying on the floor in a Richard Nixon mask, presumably exhausted from shooting Point Break. The images flickering on-screen just aren't different from other motion pictures portraying uber-wealthy turpitude. This ensures a formative event for Trump's relationship with the upper crust fails to inspire proper rage or shock.

The Apprentice’s tug-of-war between stale imagery and provocativeness is epitomized in a sequence unflinchingly depicting on-screen Ivana Trump's allegation that Donald raped her. Credit where credit is due, it’s difficult to recall any movie that dared to feature an artistic depiction of a real-world President of the United States committing such a heinous act. However, Ivana isn’t developed fully as a character in The Apprentice. Like so many women in the history of cinema, she’s only around to be sexually violated by male characters. Her alleged anguish is captured by Abbasi and company in a deeply rudimentary fashion. At once, this sequence does subvert the hagiographic approach most POTUSs get in cinema (hi, recent Reagan biopic!). It also just fulfills typical visual norms for how women are portrayed in film. Again, The Apprentice’s convictions are upended by its willingness to settle for what we’ve seen before.

Ali Abbasi does, at least, retain his skills by drawing out strong performances from his actors with The Apprentice. This means Sebastian Stan, hot on the heels of his outstanding A Different Man turn, delivers solid work portraying Trump. Narratively, it’s not very compelling just watching Trump get louder and brasher. Stan’s performance, though, does render this transformation in delicate terms. Little by little, Stan’s on-screen presence accumulates more and more recognizable Trump flourishes (chiefly in body language) like a grimy snowball traveling down a snow-covered hill. The piecemeal evolution lets Stan demonstrate a terrific attention to detail as an actor.

Playing opposite Stan is Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, who drums up solid work less reliant on distractingly arch flourishes than his Trial of the Chicago 7 and Armageddon Time performances. However, Strong’s casting (or at least the way he’s portrayed in this movie) does undermine one key component of The Apprentice’s narrative. At the start of the second act, Cohn gives distant daddy Fred Trump a little rebuke indicating that this prosecutor is firmly a surrogate father for Donald Trump. At that moment, I blinked a few times and thought to myself, “Oh, Cohn and Trump area father/son duo?”

Though 19 years of existence separated Trump and Cohn in reality, Stan and Strong constantly look like they’re roughly the same age. They exude maybe a sibling dynamic, not the intended father/son rapport. Strong is a fantastic actor, but even he can’t physically or vocally sell that he’s two decades Stan’s senior. With this casting, The Apprentice’s central relationship never fully coalesces.

Much of this feature is like Strong’s work as Roy Cohn. Serviceable in many respects, but also far from fulfilling its full potential. The Apprentice too often runs on fumes opting for standard narrative and visual cues rather than going truly transgressive. Director Ali Abbasi has said cinema must "deal with the rising wave of fascism". Certainly, this artform can challenge manifestations of that fascism like a U.S. politician many Holocaust survivors and their descendants say evokes Adolf Hitler. However, filmmaking this perfunctory doesn’t challenge the status quo. There's a reason the unhinged and deeply unorthodox Southland Tales is now considered a better indictment of Bush-era America than the uber-traditional biopic W. Unlike more visually subversive and proletariat-oriented projects like The Assistant, The Apprentice leaves little to no impression. It doesn't upend expectations so much as it packages real-world monsters into tidy narrative confines.