Skip to content, or skip to search.

Skip to content, or skip to search.

The Megaplex Primary

This season, an explosion of political films will attempt to influence the national debate. But which presidential candidates might they benefit?


THE MOVIE: The Kingdom (9/28). When terrorists attack a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia, a team of elite FBI agents (Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner) tackle the bad guys.
CAST AND CREW’S POLITICAL LEANINGS: Jamie Foxx and three of the producers have each given the max donation of $2,300 to Barack Obama.
IF THIS FILM WERE A POLITICAL AD, IT MIGHT…
... help Giuliani? Michael Moore should swoon over the Saudi connection, but the globe-trotting-American-supercop story line could be ripped from a Rudy stump speech.


THE MOVIE: In the Valley of Elah (9/21). A grizzled vet (Tommy Lee Jones) discovers his Iraq-serving son has been murdered—and suspects a military cover-up.
CAST AND CREW’S POLITICAL LEANINGS: Susan Sarandon (the soldier’s mother) has already ponied up $2,000 for Obama, but director Paul Haggis (Crash) is a $2,100 Kucinich man.
IF THIS FILM WERE A POLITICAL AD, IT MIGHT…
... boost Kucinich? Dennis’s get-the-troops-home-now message might resonate with more voters once they see this nightmare scenario.



THE MOVIE: Rendition (10/12). Reese Witherspoon plays a woman whose Middle Eastern husband is abducted and interrogated, on the order of a CIA official, played by Meryl Streep.
CAST AND CREW’S POLITICAL LEANINGS: New Line head Bob Shaye split his donations among Clinton, Edwards, and Obama; Witherspoon donated to Hillary in 2003 and 2005.
IF THIS FILM WERE A POLITICAL AD, IT MIGHT…
... help Hillary? Witherspoon’s tough but sexy heroine should leave audiences feeling affectionate toward no-nonsense blondes.



THE MOVIE: Lions for Lambs (11/9). This time, Streep’s a reporter investigating how a demagogic senator (Tom Cruise) with no war experience mucked up the war on terror.
CAST AND CREW’S POLITICAL LEANINGS: Cruise’s producing partner Paula Wagner loves Hillary; MGM head Harry Sloan is a devout John McCainite who’s also given $25,000 to the RNC.
IF THIS FILM WERE A POLITICAL AD, IT MIGHT…
... buoy McCain? The trailer is anti-GOP (“They bank on your apathy,” intones Robert Redford, who directed). But McCain the war hero is the antithesis to Cruise’s all-talk, no-walk senator.


THE MOVIE: Charlie Wilson’s War (12/25). Tom Hanks is the horn-dog congressman who funded the folks we now call Taliban. Mike Nichols directs an Aaron Sorkin script.
CAST AND CREW’S POLITICAL LEANINGS: Sorkin, the most Democratic man alive, doesn’t support any one candidate—but Hanks is Obama’s most famous donor.
IF THIS FILM WERE A POLITICAL AD, IT MIGHT…
... spur a Hanks write-in campaign? Seriously, who wouldn’t vote for him? Speaking of wish lists, it could also prod Bloomberg—if only to decry the rampant corruption in this film.


Related:

Fall Preview 2007