Why so much hype?

hyped garbage

Boring

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The concept of this movie is actually really fascinating to me. Personally, I really dislike Donald Trump, and a good satire of him would work extremely well! Also, it's interesting how this movie is a) an adaptation of his book "The Art of the Deal" b)is shot as mockumentary, and has a cool visual style, and c) Johnny Depp is playing Donald Trump!However, the movie itself is nowhere near as good as its concept!While I did laugh a couple of times here and there, it was, overall, very unfunny. Most of it is immaturely making fun of Trump instead of packing the movie with little details about Trump's life that would take actual research. I'm ALWAYS impressed when those behind the scenes actually do research on whoever/whatever they're satirizing.But, despite the movie not really being funny, I thought Johnny Depp did a pretty great job. He doesn't look or sound much like the real Donald Trump, but his performance is extremely unique and bizarre, and I really found myself enjoying!Also, I'd like to comment on the people angrily calling this movie "propaganda". I highly disagree with them. It's just a quick little comedy that pokes fun of Trump, it's no "Triumph of the Will"! Really, calm down!Overall, this movie made me agree with what Ron Howard said at the end of the credits.

In this spectacular and frighteningly spot-on satire of Donald J Trump (though the fact that a lot of it is so close to his worldview is part of the point - that he COULD have made something this sloppy and tacky and all about himself), we see the man, the myth, the legend in the 1986 glory days of when he turns 40 and he is telling his life story while in the framing device of making a deal for the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City from Merv Griffin (Johnny Depp is Trump, Patton Oswalt as Merv Griffin, easily two of the funniest casting choices this year that WORK damn it all).It's important to remember this is a "Movie of the Week" from the website Funny or Die, and the context is all about timeliness. This wouldn't of worked three or even four years ago, when "Drumpf", as he's now delightfully called on Twitter (at least by myself thanks to John Oliver), was first running for president. But now it's 2016 and this has been one of those years that you simply can't write about in fictional terms - a grade A narcissist (and whatever you think about the man, he IS that) who knows one thing: Trump is amazing, the best, YUGE, and he will do great for his country as he did great for people back in his years as a real estate mogul. Of course it's all an illusion, and a kind of pact perhaps with a devil, and there's even a scene here where Trump, talking to himself in the mirror in the bathroom after being unable to take a s***, sees briefly a figure of a skeleton, this after a homeless man intoned to him 'You will not get the Taj Mahal.' What could these symbols mean? Eh, it's nothing, of course, Trump says.The entire conceit of the project is what counts here, of a self-financed passion project dug up from obscurity from the 1980's (the kind of thing that might show up on the series 'Best of the Worst') and it's all about making the same joke but in different variations, like a jazz musician playing 'My Favorite Things' for half an hour: you know that Trump will make it all about himself - "written/music by/starring/produced/co-produced/lyrics/directed by Trump" - so why not use that to leap off into his various sleazy and skeezy business practices? Or that he has an Immigrant wife (as he does now)? Or how he sued the NFL and won, but got a $1 settlement offer (that I didn't know about but hey I believe it)? And it's also all resting on Johnny Depp's shoulders as a performer, and what he does here is a goof, a long SNL skit, but what a skit! Yes, it's clear that he's taking on a lot of make-up once again and putting on a New York Trump-y drawl, but it works. He carries best I think Trump's instability and lack of self-consciousness (except when that comes to his suit or if he's talking to a minority child in his propaganda, which is hilarious in that he changes up the kid a few times, with a black kid given the shortest amount on screen), and the narration gives a lot of jokes at the image of Trump as a kind of public persona who is basically ripe for mockery, not to mention his interactions with others (Jason Mantzoukas as a bum, Paul Scheer as Roy Cohn, Alfred Molina as his "Jewish Lawyer", no, really, he's referred to as that on screen, and he has to demonstrate how he eats the c***s off of the plaintiffs Trump's against).Does every little attempt at humor work? Maybe not. But then this is the kind of satire that aims high and low - there's a poop joke, or rather about how Trump *can't* poop - but more often than not the lines connect and it's consistently funny and at least amusing. The ending is slightly problematic in that it doesn't keep things into its 1980's aesthetic (spoiler, Christopher Lloyd pops up from 2016 with the presidential news). I think that it is the one major fault is that it doesn't keep its references to the 80's solely and goes into present day context so strongly (hell, even Alf shows up, performed by the original actor, and it's great) when we already know watching it what the context is all about: meet the new Donald, same as the old Donald, only without the actual coiffed 'Helmet hair', only now (to at least me and I'm sure others) the visage of a demagogue.But as far as acidic satires of demagogues with plenty of 'cards' of Deal wisdom go, this takes the cake. And when it comes to satirical targets, the only downside is that he's almost TOO good for right now, like it may take a couple decades until the next big one can come around... like The Producers. 7.5/10

While Darrell Hammond on Saturday Night Live does a decent Donald Trump, Johnny Depp of "Pirates of the Caribbean" fame proves why he may be the best performer in Hollywood. In this relatively short satirical film, Depp delivers an absolute spot-on imitation of the business magnate-turned-television reality star-turned-republican presidential demigod. If this was a more serious film at feature length, you'd start thinking Academy Award! At 50 minutes, it's just about as long as I could take in a movie concerning the most arrogant man on the planet with delusions of Godhood, although Depp's performance is more than worth the price of admission.When I first found it on Netflix, I didn't know what to make of it. I began watching the featurette with lots of questions, the biggest being why had I not heard of it? The film begins with an explanatory intro by film director and former child/adolescent star Ron Howard. He explains the film was produced, written and starred Donald Trump in the late 1980's but was pre-empted by a Monday Night Football game in 1988, a lousy one at that. All copies were destroyed in a fire, according to Howard. Decades later, Howard was rummaging in a yard sale and he and another pack-rat found the only surviving copy among heaps of stuff. The other pack-rat was about the build of Melissa McCarthy, but luckily Howard won the day and has brought the film out for public consumption.The film begins like one of those TV movies of the week you used to see in the 1970's and 1980's. Just about every television cliché is present from the music, similar to "Dallas", "Knots Landing", and "Love American Style" to the glittering fonts. Every credit is "Donald Trump" from producer to actor to editor. The film begins with a kid stealing a copy of Donald Trump's "The Art of the Deal" and escaping into an office. Of course in the office is Donald Trump (Johnnie Depp). The film becomes a mish-mash of episodes through his book as Trump explains how he got to where he is through being a ruthless and heartless American businessman. The kid is a mesmerized one-person audience hearing Trump's "story", if story it can be called. Chapters include among other things how to win lawsuits and how to defraud tenants. A few Hollywood name talent also appear including Alfred Molina (da Vinci Code) and Henry Wrinkler (who used to play Fonzie with Ron Howard on Happy Days in the 1970's).While in some ways, "The Art of the Deal" is sort of like a long Saturday Night Live sketch, Depp's performance is superb. He's captured all of Trump's gestures and idiosyncrasies right down to fiddling with his hair. If a more serious film about the rise of Trump were ever produced, Depp would be the hands-on choice. A real interesting experiment in filmmaking, and if it weren't for the fact that this narcissist disguised as a human being is trying to become king of the world, he'd probably being suing Depp and the director Jeremy Konner and writer Joe Randazzo. Luckily, Trump is rather busy. Trying to become king of the world is a full-time job.

Donald Trump didn't coin the phrase "There's no such thing as bad publicity," but he may as well have (and he might even take credit for it anyway). For a titanic media figure whose image was already virtually predicated on self-satire (even before his recent bid for presidency), Trump's belligerent braying has courted many a satire in his time, but few that have made much of an incisive mark. If anything, the glut of recent Trump riffing, from SNL to Jimmy Fallon, have more than likely backfired in their riffing intent, and only served to further bolster the outrageous silliness of Trump's media personality, rather than drawing much- needed attention to the many problematic aspects of his campaign. As James Poniewozik from the New York Times mused, "How do you spoof a candidate who treats campaigning like a roast?"This is the major sticking point with Funny or Die's 'Donald Trump's the Art of the Deal: The Movie'. On paper, a fantastic idea - Ron Howard introduces a videocassette of Trump's (fictional) '80s-set informercial-turned-TV-movie, lost in "the Cybill Shepherd blouse fire of 1989" (one of the film's choicest one-liners) - the film plays as an overlong skit which flounders due to not being terribly funny, and crucially lacking in any particularly percipient satire. Is it amusing? Yes, for the most part, but fairly blandly so. With an unfocused sense of humour broadly skewing for everything from Citizen Kane gags (thank goodness for Patton Oswald and his cinema-literacy) to occasional pokes at the fourth wall (some more successful than others, though one mid-film "re-casting" bit is a winner), to toilet humour, preciously few bits raise more than a faint smile. Oddly enough, where the film really excels is as an '80s pastiche, with its washed out VHS fuzziness, corny montages, and chirpy, gratuitous child lead(s) acing the tropes enough to make John Hughes proud. There's even a Kenny Loggins theme tune, bless 'em. Of course, the film's main bid for attention is its 'who woulda thunk it?' stunt casting of Johnny Depp as Trump - and, yes, it's as much of a rollicking success as you've heard. With the aid of some impressive prosthetics and a mighty hairpiece, Depp nails Trump's fidgety physicality and distinctive Queens bellow. However, he's also wise enough to dig beneath mere mimicry, finding notes of preening sinisterness and occasional desperation, entirely devoid of empathy, all coalescing into a performance that feels entirely human, and all the more unsettling for it. The gaggle of guest stars are also generally good for a laugh - Oswald, transposing his characteristic neurotic schlub into a Miami Vice villain is a scream, while Alfred Molina tirelessly fishes for peanut gallery one-liners as Trump's seedy "Jewish lawyer." Even if most of the cast are invited to retool their best bits from other work, they're all still on top form - Jack McBrayer revisiting his bubbly, hollow- eyed imp from 30 Rock, Henry Winkler his blustery hypocrite from Arrested Development, while Robert Morse gets one more adorable 'top of the ladder' yuk, and there's a Christopher Lloyd cameo so stupendous I won't spoil it here. Still, it's a shame such a superb ensemble isn't given more to do than be fairly repetitively roasted by Depp's Trump, believable as it may be. 'Believable,' ultimately, is the sadly operative word. If Funny or Die's intent was to defame Trump's image midway through the primaries, it's a bit of a redundant effort: such an unfortunately gentle satire is hardly news for Trump-opposition, while those firmly on Team Trump are unlikely be shaken by any of Depp's mugging, excellent as he is. Call it the Wolf of Wall Street effect (though The Art of the Deal is a far feebler effort): the artistic intent is to present Trump's misdemeanours at barely exaggerated face value, intending them to speak for themselves as inherently absurd and satirical. However, due to Trump's cult of personality, those already swayed by him are all too likely to reppropriate the joke as sincere, making it a bit of a disappointingly apolitical backfire of a political satire. Ultimately, Funny or Die's The Art of the Deal means well, but it's lazy, highly produced, and lacking in cohesion and teeth, muddying its point in a bunch of loud, airy bluster counterbalanced with infectious enough buffoonery to ride out in spite of itself. In short, it's everything Donald Trump would love. -5/10