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Home Video | Review by Dan Taylor
The story of Big Bill Clinton's
rise from beefy, whore-hopping Southern
governor to beefy, whore-hopping President-elect
is well known. In the first Presidential
election run under the intense scrutiny
of both mainstream press and tabloid
journalists, Clinton's 1992 campaign was
the political equivalent of a freak show... it
made you wince but you just couldn't take
your damn eyes off it! Adultery, draft dodging,
dope, anti-war rallies -- man, it had it
all, and then some.
Of course, Clinton's victory
in November of 1992 can be attributed to
a few factors. First, his Democratic opponents
ran the gamut from a spineless boob I wouldn't
have nominated for student council (Paul
Tsongas) to a rabid dog/granola-head whose
best political days are far behind him (Jerry
Brown, who actually got in Linda Rondstat's
jeans before she ballooned into Carnie Phillips).
Second, the incumbent was a sleazy, lying,
desperately out-of-touch politician abandoned
by his own party in a repeat of 1976.
The
third, and perhaps most important, factor
in the equation ended up being two members
of the Clinton campaign team and the de
facto subjects of this documentary. James
"Ragin' Cajun" Carville was (and
is) a slick political strategist capable
of single-handedly spinning bad news into
good and vice versa. George Stephanopolous,
the boyishly charming director of communications,
was Clinton's informational pipeline and
the man responsible for firing back at press
questions regarding the hopeful's closetful
of skeletons (all of them inexplicably stained
with french fry grease).
Opening at the New Hampshire
primary -- the traditional kickoff of the
lying, backstabbing and gutter-sniping season
-- THE WAR ROOM follows Carville and Steph.
as they spin their way to the White House,
Clinton in tow. Starting off with a bang,
New Hampshire brings us face-to-face with
the Jennifer Flowers issue, the first of
many incredible pitfalls faced along the
road. (Frankly, Flowers looks like the kind
of chick Clinton would try and slip it to
-- a slutier version of Hillary.)
Along the rocky road we watch
Carville deliver an inspiring speech to
the faithful, slickly deflect questions
about Clinton's 1970s trip to Moscow, and
work to break stories that'll deflate or
dent the Bush re-election bid. Stephanopolous,
who became a sex symbol throughout the campaign,
seems to do a lot of running around... though
I'm not exactly sure what else he does.
The biggest flaw with the
film is that we're too familiar with
these events. Press coverage of every Clinton
gaffe was overbearing yet did little to
deter the nation from embracing the man
in a thorough trouncing of Bush's evil little
empire. The flick never fleshes out the
campaign's reactions and responses to each
of the problems, and we get what amounts
to a 90 minute look at campaign HQ. It's
like a filmed guided tour... we get to look
at lots of neat stuff, but we're never allowed
to peek at the true inner-workings.
Not that the film is without
its highpoints. Carville is as charismatic
and fascinating as I expected, though his
resemblance to Hunter S. Thompson spooked
me after a while. It was also refreshing
to watch the Bush clips and remember just
what a slick, phony byproduct of the American
political scene he was/is. As the saying
goes, "the enemy of my enemy is my
friend." That's how I felt in 1992,
and sadly enough, that's what'll drive my
vote in 1996. And 2000...
