THE IDES OF MARCH

Political thriller

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Ryan Gosling: campaign press secretary Stephen Meyers
George Clooney: presidential hopeful Pennsylvania Governor Mike Morris
Marisa Tomei: New York Times reporter Ida Horowicz
Philip Seymour Hoffman: Morris’ campaign manager Paul Zara
Evan Rachel Wood: intern Molly Stearns
Paul Giamatti: rival campaign manager Tom Duffy
Jeffrey Wright: Senator Thompson

REVIEW
It gets off to a slow start with so much talk about political intrigue that I was seriously thinking about leaving. But then things started to look up when two people meet in a bar for a drink. From that point on I was riveted to the outcome as I was unsure of what would transpire in this depiction of politics in America.

Certainly it is a good film, but could have been better had it not fell victim to Ralph’s Rule of Redundancy:
Any film where one person (George Clooney) takes on more than 2 key positions (Director, Producer, Writer and Star) has at least one major shortcoming: in this case it is lack of independent judgement by not editing out much of the first third.

But the strong supporting cast and excellent performances compensate to a great extent.

CLASSIFICATION

for pervasive language.

P.S.
In the early Roman calendar the middle of the month was known as the ides. The best known one (thanks to Shakespeare) took place in March 44 B.C., the day Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate by a group of conspirators led by Marcus Brutus.

P.S.S.
Less well known perhaps is that March 15 is the date of the Ohio Primary.