“Reagan” review: An admiring but superficial look at the 40th US President

“Is there anything worse than an actor with a mission?” asks an angry Jane Wyman, Ronald Reagan’s first wife, at the beginning “Reagan”, the new biopic with Dennis Quaid.

After watching another two hours of this story, an admiring look back at the man who served two terms as our 40th president, we can report that there is definitely something worse: An actor without a movie.

But let's not blame the star. Quaid, who has played more than one president, has the charismatic grin, the pomaded hair and, most of all, that distinctive folksy voice – close your eyes and it sounds VERY familiar. If he were to appear in that role on Saturday Night Live, it would be a coup similar to Larry David as Bernie Sanders.

This isn't an “SNL” sketch, though, despite Jon Voigt appearing as a KGB spy with a thick Russian accent, but we'll get to that. This is a 135-minute movie that demands a lot more depth. And to borrow a political line from Bill Clinton, which Quaid also played: It's the script, stupid.

Lovingly directed by Sean McNamara and written by Howard Klausner, Reagan begins with a terrifying event (and a parallel to a more recent one): the assassination of Reagan in Washington in March 1981, just two months after he became president.

Some say that Reagan's survival of the assassination attempt cemented his relationship with the public, as he once said to his wife Nancy from bed, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” In any case, the filmmakers use this event as the basis for their story and will return to it later in chronological order.

But her first point is that Reagan emerged from the crisis with a divine plan. “My mother always said that everything in life happens for a reason, even the most discouraging setbacks,” he says. And as he will tell Tip O'Neill, the Speaker of the House, everything from then on will be part of that divine plan.

The even bigger point here is that, according to this film, Reagan was essentially single-handedly responsible for the ultimate downfall of the Soviet Union because he showed the people of the world what freedom meant. “I knew he was the one,” says Viktor Petrovich, the retired spy Voight plays as the narrator throughout – the one who would bring everything down. The screenplay is based on Paul Kengor's The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, and Kengor has said that Viktor is based on a number of KGB agents and analysts who followed Reagan for years.

This point is made early and often. The rest is a story with lots of glorious, loving light surrounding our star. We go back to his younger years, learn about his mother and what she taught him about faith, and then his Hollywood years as an actor, president of the Screen Actors Guild (and Democrat) before he went full-time into politics and the GOP.

We also see the recently divorced Reagan meet the charming Nancy Davis, who becomes his second wife, loving partner and constant companion. Like Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller is a passable actress who offers little nuance here. Together they embark on a road to political stardom, starting with the governorship of California. When they arrive at a neighbor's house to campaign, the housewife hears Reagan's initials “RR” at the door and thinks he is Roy Rogers.

But a decade and several changes later, Reagan is sworn in as president and begins his eight-year term. “I was obsessed with finding out what was behind the facade,” says Voights Petrovich, explaining why Reagan was so influential.

Maybe he could tell us then?

Because at the end of the film, with the president's death in 2004, a decade after he announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, we know little more about this influential figure in American politics than we did at the beginning.

Of course we get all the big hits. “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” we hear him say in Berlin in 1987, a scene with much anticipated tension.

And it's fun to hear the famous debate lines, like “There you go again” to Jimmy Carter in 1980 and, of course, his infamous deflection of the age issue in 1984 to Walter Mondale. “I will not make age an issue in this campaign,” the 73-year-old president told his questioner. “I will not exploit my opponent's youth and inexperience for political purposes.”

This sentence, which made Mondale laugh himself, put Reagan back on track in the race. The film, however, didn't quite do it.

“History is never about when, why or how – it's always about who,” says Voights Petrovich. Whatever historians say, we would have preferred a closer look at the when, why, how or anything else that would have given us real insight into the true personality of this man rather than a lengthy and glowing commercial.

“Reagan,” a Showbiz Direct film, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association “for violence and smoking.” Running time: 135 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.