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This isn't going to convert anyone to Sorkin, but as a fan of most of his stuff I feel this is one of his best works with even better direct than his debut, this honestly should win best editing, and a strong script that leans on Sorkin's best qualities.

I agree with knives- Sorkin has made a very self-conscious crowdpleaser, fitting the bill of your typical Hollywoodized history pic with enough artistic flourish to make it distinguishable without trying to pass itself off as being above the manipulative mechanics of the new millennium's Drama -those that come with doses of witty comedy for good measure. I'll get into this more in the Oscars thread once I've seen all the noms, but this film succeeds where Judas and the Black Messiah fails, by embracing its artifice and contrivances and still coming out more affecting through several handfuls of inspired sequences- from the big Fuck You grandiose speeches to the more humbly raw and affecting storming of the hill. The prologue starts things off with a bang- inviting us into this ride with an exceptionally edited introductory sequence, somehow maintaining a rhythm that is both smooth and manic, and sets up the film in the most economical way possible. I'm still rooting for Promising Young Woman's screenplay for its risk, tonal diversity, and originality, but Sorkin's is great and he commands a lot of moving parts as writer and director. I'm not sure if the fifth nommed director slot should have gone to him, but he's a hell of a lot more deserving than Vinterberg (never thought I'd say that before seeing both films). I certainly did not expect to find this film to be the one to stir my emotions in its expression of social justice pertaining to police brutality, racism, and corruption, but that says as much about Sorkin's strengths as it does Judas' failures.

I finally gave in and streamed this today and felt impatient with it almost the whole run time. I just couldn't find an angle into it other than boomer nostalgia, a movie released in 2020 that is all about telling us that people against the Vietnam War ... turned out to be right! Well, cool story bro.

Interestingly, I had the exact opposite reaction as twbb to this movie vs. Judas and the Black Messiah. Judas had real topical urgency, and I thought it really had a lot to show us about the through lines between the late '60s and today. Plus, a full cultural push to rehabilitate the public image of the Black Panthers is fully a half-century overdue. Sorkin's film, by contrast, is a victory lap for the people with Deadhead stickers on their Cadillacs.

Yeah I'm clearly in the minority on Judas (Martin Sheen's makeup still makes me laugh tho) but cannot blame you or anyone else for being impatient during Trial. It's feeding into the Hollywood BP-yearning 90s programmers wholesale without apology, but because it seemed so conscious of what it was doing I appreciated that, which I understand might not matter to most viewers (and as I mentioned elsewhere, I detected Judas vying to be different without being distinguishable in my eyes from Weinstein-BP fanfare which knocked it back points, in my erratic subjective scaling).

I mean, this is a film where Fuck Yeah anti-govt corruption moments happen like

Spoiler

Michael Keaton allowing an entire 5-10 minute scene to take place with him silently playing hard to get, until he reveals the punchline that the two guys in the back of the room are only waiting there so he can tell them to go fuck themselves

and where Fuck Yeah anti-racist moments happen like

Spoiler

the judge saying "I have been working for x years and you're the first lawyer to accuse me of being racist" only for his partner to chime in, "Well allow me to be the second!"

so yeah, those who like or dislike this film will probably be doing so for the same reasons that exist on the surface-level.

Brian C wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:28 pm I finally gave in and streamed this today and felt impatient with it almost the whole run time. I just couldn't find an angle into it other than boomer nostalgia, a movie released in 2020 that is all about telling us that people against the Vietnam War ... turned out to be right! Well, cool story bro.

Interestingly, I had the exact opposite reaction as twbb to this movie vs. Judas and the Black Messiah. Judas had real topical urgency, and I thought it really had a lot to show us about the through lines between the late '60s and today. Plus, a full cultural push to rehabilitate the public image of the Black Panthers is fully a half-century overdue. Sorkin's film, by contrast, is a victory lap for the people with Deadhead stickers on their Cadillacs.

Not surprised. This is pretty much why I never liked The West Wing or virtually anything Sorkin's written. It reeks of someone who believes they're much smarter than they really are, to the point of condescension. In a rare instance like The Social Network, he gets the right context where these limitations can feel like advantages thanks to the characters he's writing about.

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I haven't revisited it in over a decade, but Sports Night is great

I’d say “compellingly unconvincing dialogue” is exactly what Sorkin is good at, though it takes some particular directorial abilities to make his scripts more than merely watchable, and he hasn’t yet shown that he has those abilities.

DarkImbecile wrote:I’d say “compellingly unconvincing dialogue” is exactly what Sorkin is good at...

I think I’d agree with this, although the dialogue in this particular movie only occasionally feels “Sorkinesque” in the usual sense. But to me, he combines his legitimate talent with a very middle-of-the-road, fairly uninquisitive perspective. Like if Ron Howard favored a particularly loquacious style. Both of his directorial features have had a “this really happened!” gee-whizitiveness about them without really digging very deep into why it matters or even what’s interesting about them.

You hear people say all the time that some news event or another “would make a great movie” but it seems to me like it’s rarely true, which is why writers resort so easily to exaggeration and dramatization. The story itself just isn’t enough! But Sorkin usually doesn’t seem to engage much beyond that, at least as a director.

Looking it up if anything it sounds like Sorkin underplayed his hand here.

I also think the film is inquisitive about different modes of protest and how shared sides develop conflict. The eight characters are all defined by the degrees in which they don’t fit into the group with perhaps the most compelling character literally defined as not supposed to be in here. It may not work for you, but there’s definitely more going on here than a plaid dramatization without inquisition.

I can see where you're coming from but I just can't really agree. One of the things that really struck me about the film is how little definition the intragroup dynamics are given - there's the one debate between Hayden and Hoffman about tactics ("how can you not know that?") but it's superficial and felt half-hearted to me, like a leftover speech cut from an episode of The West Wing and repurposed here. I don't see it as "inquisitive about different modes of protest" because the only real difference between those two (in the movie, anyway) is that Hayden is impatient with Hoffman's perceived lack of seriousness - not even really the mode of protest so much as the presentation of those protests to the squares. But that's part of the problem, I feel, is that Sorkin only really sees those two in very superficial terms - the clean-cut presentable guy vs. the long-haired hippie jester. Their actual ideals and methods are not examined with any care, except that Sorkin of course agrees that the war was bad.

But on the other hand, Dellinger really does have a different mode of protest, and he's barely acknowledged. Or actually even worse, his big moment to have an impact is when Sorkin fabricates an event for him that undermines his value system for the sake of ... I dunno, dramatic irony or something, who can say.

I get that and also have reservations about the punch which should have been exercised. I suppose for me the modes presented here are effective in communicating these ideas, but I certainly appreciate how they are ineffective for others, as alluded to by my admitting this won’t win over Sorkin skeptics, but being ineffective isn’t the same as having an absence of that makes sense.

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So true, that’s def not a tempered response like calling an innocuous filmmaker you don’t like “diseased”