Review: Bombshell

A film depicting events and personalities surrounding the 2016 removal of Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) as head of the Fox News Channel, after accusations of sexual harassment towards several Fox News employees. Chief among those were long-time TV hosts Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) and Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman). Margot Robbie plays naïve religious Conservative Fox staffer Kayla, a fictional composite character, whilst Kate McKinnon plays another fictionalised character, Kayla’s closeted lesbian co-worker and roommate. Connie Britton turns up as Ailes’ loyal wife, Malcolm McDowell plays magnate Rupert Murdoch, whilst Aussie brothers Ben and Josh Lawson play Rupert’s sons Lachlan and James.

 

Upfront I’ll tell you that because this film deals with the polarising and politically-fuelled Fox News Network, I’ll probably be offering opinions here that aren’t necessarily relevant to the film being discussed. It’s Fox, I’ve got views about them, and if you’ve read my reviews before you’ll know I tend to go on tangents and semi-relevant asides on a frequent basis anyway. There’s a reason I don’t get paid for this, I guess. The Fox News Channel is certainly a good subject for a film in and of itself, whether you take a negative stance towards them or not. The #MeToo era again is certainly a solid subject to make a film about as well. Unfortunately, director Jay Roach (“Meet the Parents”, the solid political TV movie “Game Change”) and screenwriter Charles Randolph (co-writer of “Love and Other Drugs”) drop the ball with this wholly unconvincing, frankly puerile 2019 film that throws softballs at the female Fox News personnel.(with perhaps one exception I’ll get to later), because it doesn’t fit into the rest of the #MeToo narrative the filmmakers have latched themselves onto. It results in a film that, whilst very well-intentioned, ultimately insults anyone with even a working knowledge of the players here. Players who, sexual harassment or not, have plenty of flaws that the filmmakers completely ignore to tell a more streamlined – and thus ineffectual – version of events. Add to that an almost completely unconvincing roster of miscast actors and you’ve got a film that is frankly useless to anyone in the know.

 

Charlize Theron and a terrific makeup job was awarded with Oscar glory in “Monster” back in 2003, and quite deservingly so. It was an astonishing disappearing act by the normally very glamorous Theron at the very least. She’s attempted the same feat here to play former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, unfortunately Theron never remotely gets Kelly’s voice or distinctive Illinois accent right. It’s not even close, and presenting her (both in and out of the anchor’s chair) as sounding far too serious. If you’ve ever watched Kelly on Fox News, she’s usually pretty cheerful and capable of having a laugh. Not so here, and I don’t think it's just because of the heavy subject matter, either. That’s a cop-out. It’s like Theron only attempted to master Kelly’s serious on-air anchor voice, which isn’t how she sounds 100% of the time (and surely not how she’d sound off-screen, right?), and even then Theron still doesn’t nail it anyway. As for the makeup by Kazu Hiro (who worked on another biopic with unconvincing acting and makeup, “Darkest Hour”), it does a really good job of making Theron look like Elizabeth Banks. Whom she isn’t playing. So it’s useless, making Theron look less like Kelly than she already would’ve sans makeup. In fact, it makes Theron look exactly like what it really is, that she’s wearing makeup. There’s maybe three shots in the entire film where she kinda looks a bit like Kelly (albeit a strangely frozen-of-face Megyn Kelly). If you squint. Hard. Sadly, Theron’s performance just never convinces, you can always see the gears turning, for one thing.

 

Nicole Kidman looks a little closer to her counterpart, former “Fox & Friends” co-anchor Gretchen Carlson, but Kidman doesn’t even remotely try to sound or act like the woman. It’s important because this is all recent history and they’re pretty familiar people, at least to me. She makes for a convincing bimbo bobblehead though, so I think that at least gives her the edge over Theron. It’s just that Carlson is more abrasive and snarky, whereas Kidman’s screen presence – in practically anything – is fairly inhibited, chilly, and quiet. Of the main cast, the weakest performer here is former Aussie soap actress Margot Robbie. I normally love her (I’ll admit to being a “Neighbours” viewer on-and-off since it began and really liked her on it), but playing a fictional/composite character here I never once found her or the character remotely credible. In fact, any scene involving her and the out-of-place and distracting Kate McKinnon (again, not playing a real person) seemed to belong in a different, more lampoon-ish film that wrongly undercuts any attempts at seriousness and credibility here. Robbie’s character and performance come off like something that a screenwriter who has only watched about 2 minutes of Fox News would dream up. It’s cheap and asininely caricatured, though I’d only give the actress about 5% of the blame there.

 

Breaking my own rules here, I somehow found John Lithgow’s blustery Roger Ailes the highlight of the film, despite Lithgow not looking like the man nor attempting to sound like anyone other than himself. It’s even worse when Roach unwisely shows photos of the real Ailes. Still, Lithgow manages to get away with it through sheer acting ability. He embodies the man despite not looking or sounding right. It’s not a remotely subtle performance, in fact it’s a bit of a blustery caricature. However, it seems to be a pretty accurate blustery caricature from everything I’ve read about the man in a film where the portrayals are otherwise not even close to convincing. No one is absolutely 100% convincing here, but the ones who get closest are Allison Janney, and far more fleetingly Bree Condon, and Kevin Dorff. Dorff plays loudmouth, hypocritical, and alleged sexual harasser Bill O’Reilly (referred to by co-workers here as ‘the asshole’), and Dorff does a pretty good job of it. He’s probably the most convincing one in the entire cast, so of course he’s only in it for a few seconds. Although Janney sounds a bit more like Linda Richman from “SNL” at times than Susan Estrich, she’s one of the few actors in the film who, firstly, even attempt to sound like their counterpart, and two, anyone who knows these players will likely identify when watching it. It may not sound that much like the real Susan Estrich, but at least you can tell that’s who Janney is playing. Estrich, in addition to having one of the most distinctive voices on television (there’s a little Carol Channing in it), is a really interesting character. Far more interesting than she’s allowed to be here, merely relegated to being part of Roger Ailes’ legal defence team. Why is she interesting? Well, despite being a frequent guest on Fox News (and other Conservative media) and considering Ailes a long-time friend, she’s actually a well-known Democratic operative/commentator. And from what I’ve seen of her on Fox, she’s much less of a softballer than say Juan Williams, or the late Alan Colmes. Hell, before this film the only thing I knew about her was her work as a Democratic pundit on Fox, so I was quite shocked. So it’s a real shame that Roach and screenwriter Randolph aren’t more interested in her. Sure, it’s not what the film is about, but it’s what the film should’ve at least touched on a little bit more.

 

One person Roach and Randolph do rather put the boots to in the film is buxom former Fox personality and current Donald Trump Jr. spouse Kimberly Guilfoyle (who interestingly was a the former squeeze of slick Democrat politician Gavin Newsom before changing colours and joining Fox). Oh boy, does poor Kimberly get a pasting in her brief appearance here, brazenly wearing a ‘Team Roger’ t-shirt and trying to rally the other Fox News (female) personalities to show solidarity towards Ailes once the allegations start coming out. There’s not even a hint of a decent person in Bree Condon’s caricatured portrayal, but like with Lithgow’s Ailes, the caricatured portrayal doesn’t seem particularly inaccurate to the public record. The film isn’t worth seeing, but I have to admit there’s one truly hilarious moment where uber-geek Fox News financial TV host Neil Cavuto tries to be ‘cool’ around Guilfoyle, and gets profanely dismissed for his efforts. It probably didn’t happen, but I have absolutely no problems believing something of that nature could’ve happened with Guilfoyle and someone at Fox.

 

However, the portrayal of Guilfoyle as essentially the only Fox News woman with even a hint of dirt, snark, or controversy to her (aside from Megyn Kelly’s infamously asinine – and kinda sorta racist – assertion that Santa is and can only ever be white) is frankly not fair, let alone not remotely truthful. Kelly’s been criticised in the media for years for kinda sorta being a bit racist (including post-Fox comments about ‘blackface’ on NBC). Gretchen Carlson and Juliet Huddy (an OK Jennifer Morrison) tended to be a lot more snarky than they’re portrayed here. Likely because in Carlson and Kelly’s case they’re women who are important to the story being told here about sexual harassment, Roach and his screenwriter feel they can’t offer up anything that might portray them in too much of a negative light (Again, the ‘Santa is Caucasian’ thing notwithstanding). Which is complete bullshit, because the film would be far more effective if it were more accurate, surely. It wouldn’t even really require much more running time either, so I don’t think streamlining things was particularly necessary, let alone beneficial. About the only real dirt the film’s main characters get involved in is of the four-letter word variety. Seriously, Randolph’s thinking he’s David Fuckin’ Mamet here with all the F-bombs, including by Kelly. It’s a little too frequent to be entirely convincing to be honest. As for the most peculiar portrayal/casting choices in the film? That would be veteran character actor Tony Plana as a far too gruff-sounding and strangely blond (?) Geraldo Rivera, and Richard Kind as an embarrassingly off-the-mark Rudy Giuliani. I normally like Kind, but what on earth was the casting director thinking there? As for Mr. Plana, were there no other Hispanic actors available? I mean, yes Mr. Plana is indeed a Hispanic male, but that’s about all the resemblance to Geraldo that there is. And why is Plana dyed blond, portraying the brown-haired – but now grey – Geraldo? He’s dreadfully unconvincing as the Trump-defending, but occasionally bleeding heart TV veteran/war correspondent. I also found it bizarre that to portray diminutive, perpetual smart-arse Fox personality Greg Gutfeld they’ve cast a guy named Troy Dillinger who doesn’t remotely resemble the gremlin-like Gutfeld (who I occasionally find amusing in a low-rent comedian kinda way), when a virtual lookalike in Brad Morris is standing right there playing a non-descript, unnamed EP of O’Reilly’s show (Is he meant to be the perpetually disingenuous, smarmy Jesse Watters, perhaps?). I’ll admit I’m nit-picking at this point, but I figured since I was talking about casting I’d mention it. A slightly bigger annoyance was the disappointing Anne Ramsay as the very distinctively-voiced former Fox anchor Greta Van Susteren. I know a mere imitation would be less important than strong acting, but Ramsey really struggles to nail the voice, and it’s pretty important given she’s got hardly any screen time to do any real acting, so first impressions kinda matter. On the plus side, Michael Buie is pretty passable as Fox anchor Bret Baier (who, like former Fox anchor Shepard Smith and to some extent veteran host Chris Wallace is a rare Fox presenter who is just a hard news guy without much of a noticeable bias), and Alana Ubach is OK as the seemingly increasingly ranting and insufferably smug ‘Judge’ Janine Pirro, who is one of the only women besides Guilfoyle to be seen in a fairly ugly light here. She’s portrayed as pretty soulless and hateful here, and frankly it’s not a depiction I can find much fault in (In fact, the character of Carlson probably should’ve been at least a little Pirro-esque). There’s plenty of other Fox personalities on show here (Malcolm McDowell plays Aussie ex-pat Rupert Murdoch adequately), but those are the ones that stood out to me for better or worse. Your mileage might differ.

 

Mostly miscast, largely dumbed-down and unconvincing view of the sexual harassment saga at the Fox News Channel. Anyone in the know will surely find little here that convinces (though many seem to disagree with me on Theron’s Megyn Kelly), and by portraying the central women in an almost exclusively positive light, the filmmakers have done a further disservice to the story. You can dislike someone and still side with them as victims of sexual harassment. I understand what the scope of the material was meant to be, but I don’t think it was a convincing portrayal of those events, anyway. John Lithgow’s rather cantankerous and sleazy performance is somewhat fun, but on the whole I found this pretty useless to me. And that’s a shame, because the former Media Studies student in me really wanted it to be good.

 

Rating: C-