Last month we brought you the teaser trailer for Recount, HBO Films’ retelling of the behind-the-scenes happenings during the 2000 presidential election and the scandal that resulted. /Film reader Linton sent us the full length trailer for the upcoming film.
Written by 33-year old actor turned screenwriter Danny Strong, Recount was the top film on the 2007 Black List, an annual poll of 150 development executives and high-level assistants which ranks the hot screenplays making the rounds in Hollywood. The top three entries of the 2005 list where Things We Lost in the Fire, Juno, and Lars and the Real Girl. So it’s definitely a great list to be on. Directed by Jay Roach (Meet The Parents, Austin Powers), and starring Kevin Spacey stars as Ron Klain, former Vice President Al Gore’s Chief of Staff, John Hurt as Warren Christopher, who supervised the contested Florida recount, Laura Dern as Katherine Harris, former Secretary of State for the State of Florida, Tom Wilkinson as James Baker and Denis Leary as Michael Whouley.
Recount will premiere on Sunday May 25th at 9:00pm on HBO.
Discuss: What do you think about the Recount movie trailer? [Please keep political discussion out of the comments]
May 8th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
HBO is reeling in some Oscar talent of late.
May 8th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I’m impressed. The writing is really good just by the trailer.
Its too bad I dont have HBO.
May 8th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Who won this election?
Gore, but the Republicans would have you believe different ;)
May 8th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
@Allynd
What part of “please keep political discussion out of the comments” did you seem to miss?
May 8th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
The events of the 2000 election are too tragic for me to find a movie about it funny
May 9th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Ps. The film looks amazing. Kathrine Harris was always one of the weirder members of Clan Bush, its look like she nails it!!!
Ms Harris will no doubt be saying how inaccurate it all is, but then she was the one saying the Republicans did not need to have a re count.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
it looks great! i hope it’s accurate though…
May 9th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I like how they make a point by showing that the “old blind bat” is Jewish…
Anyways, if this movie wasn’t so oviuously left winged, then maybe I would watch it.
I’m just sad that Tom Wilkinson is in this…he’s a really good actor.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
*Obviously =p
May 9th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
This film should be approached by viewers with healthy skepticism. An interview with writer Danny Strong, published on politico.com, reveals that former Secy of State Jim Baker was given unprecedented access to and influence over the script. Among the people Strong did not interview before shooting began were Bill Daley and former Sec State Warren Christopher, both of whom were at the center of the Florida events. It’s unclear whether he even spoke to Al Gore or Joe Lieberman. Strong obviously had a point of view and went out to find the facts that fit. We shouldn’t let him become the next Oliver Stone, recasting history for a buck.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Danny Strong apparently felt the story of what actually happened in 2000 wasn’t sufficiently compelling to attract Hollywood interest, so he ginned up a sexier story: George Bush won the 2000 recount battle because the Democrats–principally Warren Christopher and Bill Daley–were too weak, too genteel, to withstand the Jim Baker-led steamroller. Not even the heroic efforts of the only Democratic operative in Florida with the b—s to take on Big Jim could save the ship.
But Danny had a problem–how to establish the ineffectuality of the Democratic side of the fight. He decided to solve it by creating a scene or two in which Warren Christopher would utter words of compromise, naivete and illogic. In just a few screen minutes, Strong could establish an overarching theme of the film and, if he were lucky, could manage it without ever talking to Christopher.
At some point—maybe with a goose from HBO– Strong realized he had to cover himself and make contact with Christopher. He now admits that he waited to make the call until the day the scenes involving the Christopher character were shot. He also admits that he refused Christopher’s request to review a copy of the script, even though he accorded that courtesy and beyond to Baker, Klain and probably to people he met agt rest stops on the Interstate.
Christopher told the NYT he learned the film was in production when his tailor told him he was making a suit for the actor who was to play him. In other words, Strong felt it was critical to get the wardrobe right for the Christopher character, but didn’t regard the facts as rising to the same level of importance.
What Strong obviously didn’t want Christopher to know was that the script contained scenes in which his character declares that the recount dispute can be compromised and that no lawsuits will be filed on behalf of Gore. Strong knew that once Christopher read or was told of such scenes, the jig would be up–that he’d be faced with having to defend the total distortion of what Christopher did and said.
Danny just plowed ahead and now disclaims any intention to make the public believe that they’ll be viewing history exactly as it occurred. He tells the New York Times that all he intended to do was to convey “the essence of the truth.†What he sidesteps, of course, is that the film is being sold to the public not as the “essence†of what happened in 2000 but as “the story of the 2000 presidential election.†He and HBO know that the public wants to treat as fact what is fed to them as “docu-drama.” They want to believe they are witnessing historic events as they actually occurred. That they are consuming an ounce of “docu†for every gallon of “drama†is an inconvenient truth that no one, certainly not Danny Strong nor HBO, wants to point out to them. And like it or not, what the viewers treat as fact becomes fact for others in this generation and those following.
Thanks for the good work, Danny. You’ve done a terrific job of trashing a few good people and blurring the record of one of the signal events of our time. Quite a first effort.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I’m really looking forward to the movie, it should be quite entertaining!
June 6th, 2008 at 4:52 am
I can hardly wait to see this movie. Not only do I live in Florida but also, my daughter-in-law is in it!