Movie Review: 'Ides of March' is a Good Political Thriller with a Solid Supporting Cast

George Clooney's "The Ides of March" is an engaging, well-acted and very entertaining political thriller that anyone who's even the slightest bit interested in politics will almost certainly enjoy. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a whole lot to say about its ostensible subject.

Adapted from Beau Willimon's 2008 Broadway play "Farragut North," which was very loosely based on Howard Dean's 2004 presidential candidacy, the film is set during a crucial, contentious Democratic presidential primary in Ohio. Ryan Gosling is a young, hotshot campaign operative with a bright future, working for Pennsylvania Gov. Mike Morris (Clooney, who also directed and co-wrote the film). Gosling also ends up mixed up with an attractive young intern (Evan Rachel Wood) who ends up way more crucial to the campaign than she first seemed.

The rest of the cast is filled with a virtual dream team of great supporting actors- Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti, both in loud showy roles as rival campaign managers; a more understated Jeffrey Wright as a senator whose endorsement is up for grabs, Gregory Itzin (President Logan from "24") as a politician and Marisa Tomei as a New York Times reporter. Perhaps the film's most fortunate decision is that it doesn't ask Tomei to play the part as a Maureen Dowd impression.

Clooney's candidate is a sort of hybrid of Dean and Bill Clinton, albeit one considerably to the left of both those two and Barack Obama. Then again, political ideology isn't the slightest bit important to the film; it could have been made about Republican candidates with conservative talking points and not been appreciably different.

For its first half or so, until a plot twist alters it considerably, "The Ides of March" is a political junkie's dream. The dialogue and plotting are first-rate, and anyone interested in the minutiae and gamesmanship of political campaigns - i.e., "West Wing" fans- will love it. The film understands the political world and absolutely revels in it.

The actors are solid across the board, especially Gosling, giving his fourth strong performance in the last year; no other actor is on such a good run. While Clooney's role is small, I believed him as a politician- not that I'm recommending he pursue that vocation in real life, of course.

Clooney makes even more of an impression as a director. Sure, he clearly stole lots of tricks from his frequent collaborators Steven Soderbergh and Joel and Ethan Coen, but on his fourth film, Clooney is really finding his voice. Along with wonderfully named cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, he conjures a look reminiscent of '70s pictures.

However, that's not the decade this film's heart is set in.

"The Ides of March" is presumably set in the present day but doesn't feel like it, and not only because a set of campaign cell phones, of major importance to the plot, are several years out of date.

The most outdated, and ultimately weakest, thing about the film is that it has nothing notable to say about the political questions of 2011, but a whole lot of points to make about those of the 1990s. And I don't only say that because there's a sex scandal involving an intern ...

The central dilemma of politics in the '90s, and not only for committed liberals, was some variation on, "Bill Clinton's doing the right things in office, but he's done sleazy things behind the scenes- how much of that can we live with? And is there a place for idealism in politics, or will cynicism reign for good?" This question was at the core of Joe Klein's roman a clef "Primary Colors," as well as Mike Nichols' wonderful, underrated 1998 film adaptation.

"The Ides of March" tells, essentially, the same story as "Primary Colors," also featuring a youngish, idealistic campaign operative as the protagonist, and even stealing the ending, verbatim, from either the book or movie (I won't say which). But it's 2011 now, the Clinton Era is well behind us, a lot has happened since, and the questions raised by the film, by this point, just feel like yesterday's news.

Clooney has implied in interviews that he made this film as a commentary on liberal disappointment with President Obama. But nothing that happens in this movie has anything to do with anything that's happened in politics, really, since Obama's been on the scene. Much like how "The West Wing" gradually became less relevant after 9/11 and the Iraq War, "The Ides of March" is a political film set in a world with no George W. Bush, no Barack Obama, no Tea Party, no 2008 economic meltdown and really, nothing that's made politics "politics" in the past 10 years.

"The Ides of March" tells a self-contained political story and tells it very well. But sadly, that's about as deep as it goes.

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The Silver Screen Rating: 3.5 star (out of 5)

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Roll Credits: The Ides of March

Directed by: George Clooney

Starring: Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Evan Rachel Wood, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei

Rated: R

Length: 1 hour 40 minutes