The Apprentice
The Apprentice
A young man took over his father's real-estate business in 1970s and '80s New York, and got the helping hand of an infamous closeted gay lawyer who helped him turn this young man into a notorious legend. Based on true events.
Kevin Ward reviewedJuly 1, 2025
A must watch, based on Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong’s performances alone. Strong plays cutthroat New York attorney and power broker Roy Cohn who takes DJT under his wing, ploughing through obstacles in his path to real estate mogul and laying out his win-at-all-costs, never-admit-defeat playbook. Stan portrayal of Trump is a really masterful balancing act that captures a lot of Donald’s mannerisms, speech patterns, posture, etc, without ever feeling like he’s doing an impersonation. There are even moments where he manages to make Trump feel like a sympathetic figure. (I reiterate — moments). But as a film it was a little hard to see what the narrative was building towards, what endpoint we’re going to land on. And in that the respect, the film’s ending feels somewhat abrupt. In retrospect, the endpoint works fine, but watching it for the first time there was uncertainty about where it was headed and will it ever get there. T enlighten some of that uncertainly the film follows Trump up until he starts collaborate on his book The Art of the Deal, well before he’s become a reality TV personality and decades before any hint of a presidential run had taken shape. The heart of the film is really structured around the mentor-protegé relationship between Cohn and Trump. It’s not as scandalous as I would have expected a film about DJT to be, but it does highlight the culture and environment that incubated the Trump that we know of today. Can’t say enough good about Strong and Stan’s performances, but want to add in the Maria Bakalova as Ivana was exceptional as well. Was somewhat hoping the film would progress far enough to see a Bakalova - Giuliani reunion of sorts, but it wasn’t meant to be. Worth checking out.