HBO: Recount, A Return To Florida

If you have nothing better to do this holiday weekend than rehash the 2000 election, watch the HBO movie about the 2000 presidential race, Recount, which airs both Sunday and Monday at 9 pm. (If you'd rather spend the weekend not thinking about politics, never fear! HBO will re-run Recount through 6 July, check the schedule.)

Starring Kevin Spacey, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley, Jr., Laura Dern, John Hurt, Denis Leary, Bruce McGill, and Tom Wilkinson, Recount takes us back to that 36-day battle, providing a behind the scenes look at the election recount in Florida. Much of it is fictionalized, of course, but it reportedly also integrates news footage and "verbatim dialogue."

ABC correspondent Jake Tapper, who had a minor consulting role, calls the movie "fairly balanced" but says that the "emotional center" of the movie is Ron Klain, who headed the Gore team. Thus, he says, the film "does tilt the film to the left emotionally, if not intellectually."

However, Uncle Barky thinks James Baker III, played by Tom Wilkinson, steals the show. And Bush lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg writes in US News & World Report:

HBO's two-hour Recount does a terrific job of accurately capturing the tension both sides felt during those wrenching 36 days and conveying how rapidly and unpredictably developments came at us. It is an exciting story that will rekindle memories none of us who were there or were following at home will soon forget. Recount marshals these events into a well-done, well-acted, and entertaining movie."

Brad Brevet at Rope of Silicon notes that director Jay Roach "is primarily known for his comedy features which includes the Fockers and Austin Powers films." Despite this, he thinks Roach is "adept ... at keeping things clear" and is "concise and to the point without too much fluff."

One more "official" or "mainstream" review from Newsweek, which puts the emotional center on Katherine Harris, the Florida Secretary of State (watch a clip, watch the trailer):

The battle may have been between Al Gore and Bush and their armies of lawyers, but in cinematic terms, the person who walks off with the whole thing is Laura Dern, who plays Katherine Harris with abandon and vigor.

As Florida's secretary of State, Harris presided over the recount process, and the presidency was in the balance. Despite the allegations of voter disenfranchisement and all-around chicanery leveled against her, the criticism that stuck most was that of how she appeared—the twitchy stage presence, the pageant-queen hair and the makeup that looked as if she'd had it applied at Tammy Faye's House of Pancakes.

[...]

The film is told largely through the eyes of the Gore team, but what can occasionally seem like bias has its roots in fact.

[...]

It will be interesting to see if a scene in which Harris yells for an assistant to bring her "pink sugar"—a packet of Sweet'N Low—sends feminist message boards into overdrive, or whether the hostility toward Bush is so great that the filmmakers get a pass for caricaturing the woman who stopped the recount.

Having Laura Dern play this role is enough to make me think about watching this -- but probably not this weekend! What about you?