REVIEW: The Front Runner a rare non-event for Jackman

The Front Runner is a rare non-event for Hugh Jackman as a philandering politican who could have been US President. Based on a true story (that could have been told better).

Not often you see any movie get the better of Hugh Jackman.

Nevertheless, the dramatically impotent sex-scandal drama The Front Runner does a real number on the usually likeable, charismatic and hard-working Australian star.

That wonky wig glued to his noggin is certainly a slight eyesore throughout. But hardly compares to the intense earsore caused by the empty political platitudes and unconvincing personal denials continually coming out of Jackman’s gob.

Nice hairdo you’re rockin’ there, Hugh!

In what can only be described as selectively accurate telling of a true story that melted down all American media in 1988, Jackman plays the ill-fated US Senator Gary Hart.

A Democrat demigod blessed with good looks and great policy initiatives, Hart was widely tipped to win his party’s Presidential nomination, and then move into the White House once Ronald Reagan cleared out.

As The Front Runner would have you understand it, the fact Hart did not complete this mission ultimately sent American politics down a twisty, turny, tawdry road that ended with the election of Donald Trump.

Hugh Jackman stars as Gary Hart in Columbia Pictures' THE FRONT RUNNER.

For the movie to work, you have to buy into the very speculative assumption that Gary Hart could have changed the course of history for the better.

This proves to be a difficult transaction for The Front Runner to complete, courtesy of a screenplay too cagey to come right out and declare what it is really selling.

It hardly helps that the movie daintily dances around the incident that rapidly transformed Hart’s public persona from promising statesman to untrustworthy pantsman.

During a break from the campaign trail, Hart was sighted on a boat off the coast of Florida in the arms of a woman that was not his wife. The boat’s name was Monkey Business. The woman’s name was Donna Rice.

Australian actor Hugh Jackman, starring in Hollywood film The Front Runner. Supplied

The Front Runner barely bothers to address the botched schematics of the dalliance, preferring to focus instead on how Hart and his advisors tried and failed to weather the media storm that followed.

Remarkably, Hart’s refusal to confirm or deny the affair - instead pleading that his dream for a better America was all that mattered - almost worked in his favour. Until he dared reporters to stake him out, and catch him out. Which they soon did.

Australian actor Hugh Jackman, starring in Hollywood film The Front Runner. Supplied

It is hard to nail down a single, worthwhile reason why The Front Runner was made. Just as it does not speak to the present poisonous political environment that has taken hold in Washington, it fails to find anything in Hart’s fast and foolhardy downfall we can possibly learn from.

THE FRONT RUNNER (M)

Rating: Two stars (2 out of 5)

Director : Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)

Starring : Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, J.K. Simmons, Sara Paxton.

No staying power in a race that never started