Review: LBJ

There are films that don't necessarily reach artistic heights but are effective nonetheless. Rob Reiner's LBJ is one such film. Its narrative is traditional and fairly by-the-numbers, but it gets the job done and very well at that, offering an intriguing portrait of Lyndon B. Johnson, the man who was the work-horse to John F. Kennedy's show-horse.

Covering the moments leading up to LBJ's inheriting the burden of the American presidency from the assassinated Kennedy as well as the period of time when LBJ transitioned from Senate Majority Leader to Vice President, the meat of Joey Hartstone's screenplay is the shifting dynamics between LBJ and three particular men, JFK (Jeffrey Donovan), RFK (Michael Stahl-David), and friend and Senator Richard Russell (Richard Jenkins). Before the film fully focuses on those relationships, Reiner establishes LBJ as an ornery man, the type to demand exactitude from an underling who provides him with an approximate number of votes he can expect to get for a bill and tell off fellow Texan Ralph Yarborough (Bill Pullman) by saying, "The only thing more annoying than a liberal is a liberal from Texas." Yet, LBJ is also the sort to worry about the public's opinion of him, especially since he's about to throw his hat in the ring for the presidency and his main rival is the young and telegenic JFK.

LBJ doesn't quite understand why being the most intelligent and hardworking person wouldn't immediately garner his party's nomination. Initially, he maintains that nominations aren't won on the campaign trail but rather on the convention floor but he's devastated when JFK wins the nomination. He's not particularly chomping at the bit when JFK discusses the vice presidency; neither is RFK, who points out that LBJ hasn't exactly been a proponent of the civil rights movement and would therefore not give JFK's civil rights bill the push it needs in order to become law. However, what RFK fails to realise and what JFK is savvy enough to acknowledge is that LBJ can work both sides of the aisle, appealing to the vehement Northern Dems and the more conservative Southern Dems. LBJ himself knows he's the only one capable of having both sides compromise in order to get the bill through, and witnessing him convince both hardcore good ole boys like Russell and the liberal Kennedys to yield bit by bit is exciting stuff.

Though staging and execution are flat, LBJ works because of Harrelson's excellent performance, which overcomes the all-too-obvious layers of prosthetics, and Hartstone's willingness to leave LBJ's motivations slightly ambivalent. Was he truly committed to propagate Kennedy's liberal agenda because he believed in it or was his commitment borne out of his political shrewdness? It's easy enough to believe that he respected and admired JFK though they necessarily didn't share the same values, but was his motivation for pushing through JFK's civil rights bill as is, no cuts or compromises, derived from a duty he felt for his fallen colleague or was it a way to curry favour from the American public? One never gets a definitive answer, but whatever LBJ's genuine incentives, there's no denying that he achieved a great deal during his tenure, including implementing the domestic program known as the Great Society, which encompassed Medicare, Medicaid and Head Start.

LBJ

Directed by: Rob Reiner

Written by: Joey Hartstone

Starring: Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, Bill Pullman, Kim Allen, Michael Stahl-David, Jennifer Jason Leigh, C. Thomas Howell, Jeffrey Donovan, Doug McKeon, Michael Mosley