Ali Abbasi’s latest film “The Apprentice” looks into the early years of one deplorable figure who has been exerting toxic influences over not only the American society but also the whole world during last several years. While it surely drew a lot of attention when it was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival early in this year, the movie is merely superficial without providing much new insight into what makes this vile dude tick, and that is quite a disappointment considering the good efforts from the two performers at its center.

That figure in question is Donald J. Trump (Sebastian Stan), and the first half of the movie is set in New York City in the middle of the 1970s, when Trump was just a banal real estate developer trying to help his family business in deep trouble. His father, Fred Trump Sr. (Martin Donovan) and his company are recently sued for racial discrimination against many of the tenants of an apartment building built by his company, and it seems like the company will inevitably lose and then sink into bankruptcy.

However, Trump happens to encounter someone who may help him. He is a lawyer named Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), and Trump recently joined an exclusive club in New York City mainly for people with power and money like Cohn, who has incidentally been one of the most powerful figures in the city since his career was boosted by that infamous communist witch hunt by Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Once he comes to discern as Trump as another source for more power and money to him, he gladly befriends Trump, and Trump willingly seeks some legal help from Cohn, who certainly does not disappoint Trump at all as taking care of that difficult legal battle of his company.

As closely watching how Cohn does his jobs, Trump virtually becomes his, yes, apprentice, and Cohn shows all those nasty tactics of his for gaining more power and influence. At one point, he lectures a bit on his three main principles to Trump, and Trump soon begins to impress his mentor more as absorbing and then following these three principles as much as possible. In fact, he learned so well from Cohn that even Cohn cannot help but feel rather alarmed as Trump becomes much greedier and nastier as the American society subsequently entered the era of the Ronald Reagan administration in the 1980s. He ruthlessly and selfishly goes for any opportunity for more money and power without any shame and guilt at all, and this also influences not only his relationship with Cohn but also his marriage with his first wife Ivana (Maria Bakalova), whom he might have really loved at first but only comes to disregard her more and more as their marriage gradually gets crumbled.            

During its second half, the screenplay by Gabriel Sherman unfortunately comes to spin its wheels. While the first half is fairly engaging as examining how Trump was “educated” by Cohn, the second half is less interesting as hurriedly moving forward to the 1980s and then arriving at the completion of Trump’s vulgar public image. We surely see the foreshadowings of his shocking political rise in the middle of the 2010s, but they are more or less than footnotes, and the movie only ends up repeating more of what we have known about this despicable figure.

At least, the movie does not feel deficient in terms of style and performance. For getting us immersed more into the period mood of the American society during the 1970-1980s, Abbassi and his cinematographer Kasper Tuxen presented the film in deliberately low visual quality, and the movie effectively utilized several period pop songs to accentuate the authentic period details show on the screen.

The two main performers did as much as they could do with their rather broad roles. Sebastian Stan, who has shown more of the considerable range of his acting talent since he got his first break thanks to several Marvel Cinematic Universe flicks, willingly hurls himself into his character’s vulgar banality, and he did a commendable job on the whole, though he gave a more interesting performance in “A Different Man” (2024) in the same year. On the opposite, Jeremy Strong, who has been more notable since his Emmy-winning turn in HBO drama series “Succession”, is equally committed as Trump’s evil mentor, and his best moments in the film come from when his character finds himself betrayed by the human monster he willingly created. As many of you know, Cohn adamantly denied his homosexuality even when he was dying because of AIDS, and, as reflected by one key scene later in the story, Trump showed no real pity or compassion to his mentor at all while remaining as shameless and impertinent as before.  

Several other cast members in the film are under-utilized in one way another. While Maria Bakalova, who has steadily advanced since her Oscar-nominated breakthrough performance in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” (2020), is utterly wasted, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, and Charlie Carrick simply come and then go as Trump’s several family members, and Donovan is only required to look disapproving during most of his scenes in the film.

In conclusion, “The Apprentice” is dissatisfying for failing to illuminate anything new about Trump, and it is all the more disappointing compared to Abassi’s two previous films “Border” (2018) and “Holy Spider” (2022), which are more interesting in my inconsequential opinion. Yes, it is really depressing to think about how this reprehensible bastard will ruin our world more during next four years, and being merely reminded again of his evil and detestable sides is the last thing I want for now.