Movie Review: The Ides of March

There's an important problem with this film. Neither George Clooney nor Ryan Gosling dance naked. Don't get me wrong, I love George Clooney and I love Ryan Gosling, but "The Ides of March" forces me to ask one, vitally important question: what is the point of beefcake if you don't get any cake?

After seeing "Crazy, Stupid Love" where Ryan removes his shirt and shows us his abs, I figured that every movie he'd be in after that would dramatically up the ante with full front nudity or something reasonably close. And if you recall that in "Batman & Robin", George wore a batsuit featuring nipples and an enlarged codpiece, which means to me that he should feature his nipples and codpiece in every subsequent film. It's only right. With movie after movie and tv show after tv show featuring one topless actress after another, isn't only right that actors like George and Ryan consistently show some skin?

Unfortunately for me, I guess, and my overenthusiastic expectations, "The Ides of March" is a political thriller featuring George as Governor Mike Morris, a Democratic presidential candidate, and Ryan as Stephen Meyers, Morris's press secretary. Really, if you think about it, with all the sexual intrigue in which political candidates are often involved, it makes complete sense that Clooney and Gosling should be naked in this film, maybe even at the same time and with each other, dancing or doing calesthenics.

As somebody who tries to stay away from political news and whose last vote for president was for Benji in a mock election in seventh grade, I did find myself sucked into this film like a piece of lint on the demonstration carpet in a vacuum store.

The story begins in the middle of the Ohio primary as Morris's people grow increasingly confident in his victory over rival Senator Pullman (Michael Mantell). Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who's seen his share of campaigns, doesn't see anything stopping his man while Stephen uses his good looks and ample charm to do little dances with political reporters like Ida Horowicz (Marisa Tomei) that leave him looking and feeling good.

However, the ugly center of this film, like a Tootsie pop with a rotten core, is all the political nastiness that goes on behind the scenes that ultimately undermines the idealistic platitudes spouted so eloquently by Morris. Things start going wrong when Stephen meets with Pullman's campaign manager, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), who convinces Stephen that his man's lead might not be insurmountable. Then, Stephen has a fling with a young Morris campaign intern (Evan Rachel Wood), and we're all sitting in our seats trying to flick the mud off our clothes only to realize that we're practically sitting in a bath of the stuff. Campaigning, we learn, is nasty business and nearly everybody in it is corrupted by the process.

George Clooney directs the film as well as stars in it and looks nice all at the same time. He's like a tsunami of talent. Sometimes it's just not enough to watch him on screen and you have notions of tracking him down and camping outside his house until his security people threaten to have your blue patent leather shoes shoved uncomfortably in one of your orifices unless you leave. However, even with all that, couldn't he have directed himself taking off his shirt? It's just not right.

If I recall correctly, "The Ides of March" refers to Caesar and his untimely demise. The day itself was basically a party day, so it recalls the contrast between partying and being stabbed. In other words, here's a film about something that looks like one thing on the outside, but underneath there's all this nasty stuff going on.

Like I said, I'm really not much of a political junkie. Then again, you could put cardboard cut-outs of George Clooney and Ryan Gosling in front of me and I might not move for several weeks. On thing is for sure, "The Ides of March" assassinated my political boredom.