IMDb > The Contender (2000)
The Contender
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The Contender (2000) More at IMDbPro »

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The Contender (2000) -- Sexy secrets from a womans past come to light as she runs for Vice President.
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Overview

User Rating:
6.9/10   12,980 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 1% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Rod Lurie
Writer (WGA):
Rod Lurie (written by)
Contact:
View company contact information for The Contender on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
13 October 2000 (USA) more
Genre:
Drama | Thriller more
Tagline:
Sometimes you can assassinate a leader without firing a shot. more
Plot:
Sexy secrets from a womans past come to light as she runs for Vice President. full summary | add synopsis
Awards:
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 1 win & 18 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(40 articles)
Top Ten Movies About U.S. Politics
 (From CinemaSpy. 3 November 2009, 9:45 PM, PST)

Jeff Bridges: The Dude Who Stares At Goats
 (From Atomic Popcorn. 28 October 2009, 9:01 PM, PDT)

User Comments:
crackling political drama more (351 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Rufmord - Jenseits der Moral (Germany)
more
MPAA:
Rated R for strong sexual content and language.
Runtime:
126 min
Country:
USA | Germany | UK
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS
Certification:
USA:R (certificate #37565) | Iceland:L (theatrical rating) | Iceland:LH (video rating) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:14A (Alberta/British Columbia) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Canada:14+ (Ontario) | Philippines:PG-13 | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | France:U | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIB | Netherlands:AL | Norway:11 | South Korea:18 | Spain:7 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | Finland:K-11 | Australia:M
Filming Locations:
Baltimore, Maryland, USA more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Rod Lurie wrote this film specifically so that Joan Allen could play Laine Hanson. more
Goofs:
Continuity: When the President addresses a joint session of Congress, he turned to his right to address "Mr. Speaker." The House Speaker sits on his left side. more
Quotes:
Laine Hanson: It seems to me that all you can claim about me... claim, is that I had sex.
Shelly Runyon: Deviant sex.
Laine Hanson: Oh, deviant? Who says it was deviant?
Shelly Runyon: I do. What I say the American people will believe. And do you know why? Because I will have a very big microphone in front of me.
more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
11 out of 19 people found the following comment useful.
crackling political drama, 21 July 2001
Author: Roland E. Zwick (magneteach@aol.com) from United States

Writer/director Rod Lurie's `The Contender' marks a significant advance in both technique and storytelling ability for this fledgling filmmaker over his sole previous cinematic effort, `Deterrence.' This former L.A. film critic-turned-filmmaker has created a crackerjack political thriller attuned to the temper of its times. In this era in which one politician after another has fallen victim to the cutthroat `politics of personal destruction' as practiced in the media, in the committee hearing room and in the backrooms of campaign headquarters around the nation, `The Contender' emerges as a timely, astute and politically savvy drama.

Like most contemporary films that deal with political issues, `The Contender' demonstrates an obvious left leaning bias. As usual, it is the Democrats who are portrayed as the righteous speakers of truth and the Republicans who are shown as the scheming, unctuous and conniving dispensers of hatred and rumormongering. Jeff Bridges stars as President Jackson Evans, a well-meaning, seemingly moral man who, upon the sudden death of his vice president, nominates a woman, Senator Laine Hanson, to be his replacement. Gary Oldman plays the Republican chairman who will stop at nothing in his efforts to torpedo the nomination, even if that means exposing her rather torrid sexual past for all the world to see (although, in many ways, his obsession with ruining the chances of a candidate he feels to be less qualified in favor of one who is more beloved as a national figure makes little practical sense because wouldn't he, as a member of the rival party, be MORE inclined to support someone he thought would bring trouble to the present administration?)

If you can see past the partisan propaganda, you will find `The Contender' to be one of the most riveting films of the past several years. In many ways, it reminds one of those Biblical spectaculars that moviemakers like Cecil B. DeMille used to churn out in the 1950's, the ones that would allow us to wallow in the depiction of all sorts of `sinful' activities, yet when the divine judgments began to fall on the perpetrators, permit us to feel morally superior to it all at the same time. In a similar way, `The Contender,' may come out foursquare against the obsession we seem to have concerning the sex lives of our elected officials – but it sure has a fun time devoting two solid hours to the topic. And its fun is ours.

One of the reasons that `The Contender' succeeds so well is because Laine Hanson, as portrayed by the brilliant Joan Allen, is an endlessly fascinating and enigmatic character. We never know quite what to make of her and it is this sense of moral imbalance that draws us in to her plight. Had she been made an innocent victim or a goody-two-shoes, she would quickly lose our interest. As the President, seemingly more concerned with ordering up spectacular dishes from the White House kitchen than with the pressing concerns of affairs of state, Jeff Bridges cuts just as believable and compelling a figure.

As with virtually all films of a political nature, the characters' actions are occasionally inexplicable within the context of practical politics. For example, President Evans rejects one of his top candidates for the VP position for ludicrous reasons. When Governor Jack Hathaway attempts but fails to rescue a woman from her vehicle that has crashed to the bottom of a river, Evans tells Hathaway that he believes the Republicans will try to bring up parallels to Chappaquiddick in an attempt to sink his nomination. Not only is that a patently absurd possibility, but Evans seems blithely unconcerned about the much worse drubbing he and his eventual nominee end up undergoing. Which leads us to the next implausibility – Evans' sticking by Hanson far past the point where any real president would have asked for the candidate to withdraw her name. Oh well, `The Contender' may not always ring true in its plotting, but it definitely gets the job done as a piece of titillating pulp drama.

My only serious complaint with the film comes in its closing stretches. Perhaps it is too much, in these days of mandatory happy endings and feel-good emotionalism, to expect the type of clear-eyed cynical conclusions we were treated to in movies like `The Candidate' or `The Best Man,' but the upbeat, fairy tale resolution here is unworthy of all the good stuff that has gone before it. By climbing onto a soapbox and deigning to lecture to us all, Lurie cops out on both Hanson and the audience - striving for the type of phony inspirationalism that went out with `Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' way back in the 1930's. Such an obvious sop to the box office leaves us with a bit of a sour aftertaste after all is said and done. (Also, Lurie needs to shed himself of the gimmick he seems to have latched onto in both his films thus far – that of the melodramatic `surprise' turnabout ending. It didn't work in `Deterrence' and it doesn't work here).

Yet, despite its sundry flaws, `The Contender' emerges as one of the most compelling and fast-moving two hours you are likely to see in a long time. You may feel like taking a shower when it's all over (maybe that explains the need Lurie may have had in providing a `moral bath' in the last 15 minutes or so), but you will at least have had a great time getting dirty.



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Hanson got on my nerves with 'It's nobody's business' cborder
Shark Steak Sandwich DatJiggaFigga-1
Gary Oldman soxfan7
How did Lurie assemble this cast??? Gunther-Giessen
It's really about Hillary twob_ornot
Maybe One of the Worst Movies Ever gerryheldt
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