Front Runner (2019)

This movie revisits the downfall of Gary Hart, the progressive Colorado senator who was on track to secure the Democratic nomination and possibly the presidency in 1988.  He was hugely charismatic with an ease in public speaking that Pete Butigieg is now the only candidate truly channeling, and equally appealing ideas about fairness and what that means for ordinary Americans.  Unfortunately, he was also an inveterate womanizer who failed to understand the shifting nature of the press and their willingness to shield politicians in a way they did back in the era of Kennedy and company.
The problem is that the whole story never seems to venture out of the shallow end and the normally charismatic Hugh Jackman is horribly miscast as Hart. He seems too old and too world-weary to be the 46-year-old, idealistic face of the future. No matter the personal and political pressure Hart was under, he remains closed-off and on-message; even his sporadic outbursts of anger seem stiff. The movie offers little insight into his true feelings, and it doesn’t provide Jackman with much of a moral or emotional evolution to portray. He is at the center of this story, and yet he feels like the least-developed character on screen.So while a window into the shift that occurred at the time, there wasn't much to gain.  It was a good movie to watch on an airplane.