Sebastian Stan, right, plays a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Photo: Scythia Films
Sebastian Stan, right, plays a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Photo: Scythia Films
Sebastian Stan, right, plays a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Photo: Scythia Films
Sebastian Stan, right, plays a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Photo: Scythia Films

The Apprentice review: Trump film avoids caricature, but hits hard with major allegations


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Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, The Apprentice is arguably one of the most intriguing films in the official competition. A biopic of Donald Trump, it covers his real estate years before he turned to politics and entered the White House as one of the most controversial presidents in living memory.

Sebastian Stan, the Marvel star who is becoming increasingly diverse in his output of late, plays Trump. He avoids acting out a caricature, even if the script sometimes can’t resist an attack on Trump's vanity (“your face looks like an orange”, cries his wife Ivana, played by Maria Bakalova, the Oscar-nominated star of the Borat sequel).

THE APPRENTICE

Director: Ali Abbasi

Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong

Rating: 3/5

Directed by the Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, who has already brought us the unusual fable Border (2018) and the Iranian serial killer drama Holy Spider (2022), this marks a considerable step-up in scale and ambition. Spanning the 70s and 80s, Abbasi and his team capture the ugliness of New York, “the greatest city in the world”, back in the day.

Early on, a passer-by on the street tries to offer his wife to Trump, as the film briefly feels like one of those scenes in Taxi Driver where Travis Bickle surveys the human flotsam and jetsam passing him by.

An ambitious real estate developer, when the story picks up, Trump feels he can do more to modernise the Big Apple than anyone else, scattering the landscape with places like the Grand Hyatt and the famed Trump Tower.

Donald Trump attends the Universal Studios Hollywood Apprentice casting call on March 10, 2006 in Universal City, California. Getty Images
Donald Trump attends the Universal Studios Hollywood Apprentice casting call on March 10, 2006 in Universal City, California. Getty Images

But, as suggested by the title (a nod to the entrepreneurial reality TV show Trump would later front), he needs help. Enter Roy Cohn (Succession’s Jeremy Strong), an impossibly well-connected attorney who has famous clients and seemingly can help Trump’s family company, with a potentially damaging legal issue with the NAACP.

Shaping Trump, as he tells him the three main rules of business (maxims like “admit nothing, deny everything”), Cohn is a persuasive figure, superbly performed by Strong in a role that’ll likely get compared to his Succession character Kendall Roy. But inevitably Trump outgrows his mentorship, as fame and success swells.

At one point he meets Andy Warhol, blithely unaware of who the pop culture icon is. “Making money is art,” he tells the artist, and it’s this that seems to characterise Gabriel Sherman’s script, showing how Trump likes nothing more than striking deals and being a winner.

As such, his resentment for weak individuals around him festers, including his substance-abusing brother Freddy, Cohn and the ex-model-turned-interior-designer Ivana, who he spends most of the time disparaging for her cosmetic surgery (which he encouraged).

Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice (2024) Photo: Scythia Films
Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice (2024) Photo: Scythia Films

There is one shocking scene where he forces himself upon her, an alleged assault that was first reported in Harry Hurt III’s book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald Trump. The only thing he cares about is courting America, “a country that has tremendous potential”, and building an ever-expanding empire.

Of course the film nods to Trump’s White House years, as he fondles a pin badge from Ronald Reagan’s campaign promising to “make America great again”. But while it’s an exciting watch, boasting an energetic feel and a soundtrack that includes Pet Shop Boys, New Order and Baccara, it arguably only surface skims Trump.

Perhaps we can never really get inside a man who plays so fast and loose with the truth, but the film gradually runs out of steam in the second half, despite showing what a ruthless and venal character he can be. In the end, it’s a story about the manifestation of horrifying ambition, and for that, it’s to be applauded.

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TRAP

Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue

Director: M Night Shyamalan

Rating: 3/5

'Top Gun: Maverick'

Rating: 4/5

 

Directed by: Joseph Kosinski

 

Starring: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Ed Harris

 
Teams

Punjabi Legends Owners: Inzamam-ul-Haq and Intizar-ul-Haq; Key player: Misbah-ul-Haq

Pakhtoons Owners: Habib Khan and Tajuddin Khan; Key player: Shahid Afridi

Maratha Arabians Owners: Sohail Khan, Ali Tumbi, Parvez Khan; Key player: Virender Sehwag

Bangla Tigers Owners: Shirajuddin Alam, Yasin Choudhary, Neelesh Bhatnager, Anis and Rizwan Sajan; Key player: TBC

Colombo Lions Owners: Sri Lanka Cricket; Key player: TBC

Kerala Kings Owners: Hussain Adam Ali and Shafi Ul Mulk; Key player: Eoin Morgan

Venue Sharjah Cricket Stadium

Format 10 overs per side, matches last for 90 minutes

Timeline October 25: Around 120 players to be entered into a draft, to be held in Dubai; December 21: Matches start; December 24: Finals

Dubai Bling season three

Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed 

Rating: 1/5

THE APPRENTICE

Director: Ali Abbasi

Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong

Rating: 3/5

Updated: September 14, 2024, 7:03 AM`