An early review is in for HBO's upcoming movie, Recount, about the Bush-Gore battle in Florida after 2000 election. Gillian Flynn in Entertainment Weekly, which like HBO is part of the Time-Warner family, has described the film, to premiere next Sunday night, as tilted against the Republican characters.
In her review in the May 23 edition of the magazine, Flynn asserted: “Recount may not be downright blue, but it's not as purply as it wants to appear.” Saying “Recount is an underdog story, and thus a Democrat story,” Flynn reported that the “Republican players here are coolly calculating -- Tom Wilkinson's James Baker III, the Bush team quarterback -- or they teeter on the edge of madness, like Laura Dern's Katherine Harris.” In fact, in an interview elsewhere, the writer of the movie slammed Harris as “a fraud.” [Screen shot is of Dern as Harris]
Flynn awarded the film an A-, but concluded with caution about its imbalance:
Recount may not be downright blue, but it's not as purply as it wants to appear. Despite its ''equal time'' approach, Recount is an underdog story, and thus a Democrat story. While George W. Bush, like Gore, is only vaguely glimpsed, the remaining Republican players here are coolly calculating -- Tom Wilkinson's James Baker III, the Bush team quarterback -- or they teeter on the edge of madness, like Laura Dern's Katherine Harris. With flaming lipstick and helmet hair, Dern nails the Florida secretary of state's looks, cadence, and carriage to a disturbing degree, and she runs with Harris' Cruella De Vil vibe: At one point, before a press conference, Dern morphs her face from that of a human being into Harris' crazy-cuckoo public mask, and the moment is absolutely chilling. Fair? Debatable, but like Recount, it's a gorgeous bit of political theater.That portrayal is not so surprising if you read an interview with the writer of the movie , Danny Strong, posted by HBO. Strong declared he “didn't understand why there wasn't a state-wide hand recount of the ballots in an election this close, in which there were uncounted ballots,” called the U.S. Supreme Court's eventual decision a “shame” because it was 5-4 and insisted that “like a lot of people, I felt that Katherine Harris appeared to be somewhat of a fraud at the time.”
Excerpts from Strong's comments:
....I was really frustrated and disgusted with the whole thing because I didn't understand why there wasn't a state-wide hand recount of the ballots in an election this close, in which there were uncounted ballots. It still makes no sense to me, and I know as much about the recount as a person can know. It's very obvious what needs to happen if it's down to 327 votes and there are 175,000 ballots that the machines have registered as non-votes. The laws of Florida say that you do a hand recount. In most states in the union, that's the law. That was the law in Texas; George Bush himself signed that into law. I didn't understand why Al Gore had only requested recounts in four counties. And I didn't understand the Republicans trying to do everything they could to block the recounts....
I had heard that the Florida Supreme Court was going to count the whole state and I thought, "Well finally!" And then I heard that the U.S. Supreme Court had shut it down! And I thought, "Well, maybe there's a reason, and I really hope it's a unanimous decision." And then when the decision was five-four, I remember thinking, "God, what a shame this is." I wasn't particularly suspicious of anyone. Like a lot of people, I felt that Katherine Harris appeared to be somewhat of a fraud at the time. But then I moved on with my life, like the rest of the country....
