The Apprentice – REVIEW

Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice


Noticing trends in Hollywood has always been fascinating to me. It’s not too often that such a big machine like Hollywood avoids a movie’s existence, and in this case, I don’t even blame the big studios for avoiding The Apprentice. If you don’t know, this movie is about Donald Trump and how he was mentored by his lawyer, Roy Cohn, and molded into how he’s viewed in the year of our lord 2025. If any of you heard about this movie, it’s how Trump had described it as a hack job that was made intentionally to derail his 2024 re-election campaign. Even one of the producers of the film, Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder, threatened to sue because he was under the assumption that The Apprentice would be painting Trump in a more positive light. All of that basically scared off any major studio from picking it up for release, and coincidentally released in theaters just a few weeks before the presidential election. The Apprentice came and went in theaters, and after seeing it, I can’t blame the people for not wanting to see a movie about Donald Trump right now. The MAGA crowd won’t accept or even process a movie that isn’t glorifying him, and the left simply don’t want to engage with a movie about someone that they’ve already had enough of before he was sworn into office the first time. Again, I get why, but actually watching The Apprentice felt like something new. First off, it’s a huge risk for Sebastian Stan, who’s playing Trump here. To my surprise, Stan actually pulls off one of the best performances of his career here. It never feels like an impression of Trump, and that was my single biggest worry. Jeremy Strong is Stan’s equal as Cohn, with him taking on many of the Trumpisms that we know now. I would’ve loved to see more of Maria Bakalova as Ivana, but I can stretch a little on why she isn’t as much of a main player here. The presentation is also really great. Director Ali Abbasi (who’s openly invited Trump to watch the movie) injects the movie with a punk rock aesthetic, and most of the movie being stylized to be watched on an old VCR. Sequences on New York City streets feel inspired by guerilla-style filmmaking, like we’re paparazzi getting successfully up close and personal with Trump. Speaking of, there’s a secret weapon with The Apprentice, one I certainly didn’t expect: There’s no sensationalism here. While the actual presentation of the movie has this jolt (having New Order on the soundtrack does that), as do the other performances, Stan’s Trump just doesn’t. Even taking out Trump’s political aspirations, which aren’t featured in the film but are slyly poked at, it feels like you shouldn’t be seeing this side of him. Honestly, the more The Apprentice goes, the more pathetic he becomes. It’s pathetic not because of a stance on Trump, it’s the lack of one. You see what he does, what he says, how he says it, and the movie makes you sit with it. If you're gonna make a movie about Donald Trump, The Apprentice is the best case scenario. It’s a look at a human being that’s only reason for living is to clawfor power, but when he reaches what he was going for, he doesn’t stop because what else can he do? It’s really telling that international voting bodies are nominating the film, as well as Stan and Strong, for awards. I’ll be very surprised if the Oscars even touch this because that could be hell on Earth, but we may already be there.


Ryan’s Grade: B+