Jeffrey Toobin, whose 2008 New Yorker article inspired this film, describes Roger Stone as “a malevolent Forrest Gump.” Stone is more than okay with that. He’s happy for people to hate him, whether it’s for what he’s done or what they think he’s done.
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“This is a movie about a political operative down on his luck.” Five and a half years ago, that’s how Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro, and Morgan Pehme pitched their project to Netflix.
Times have changed. Roger Stone has not.
Instead of a curious documentary about a political has-been, the trio of writer-directors have produced a fact filled bio-pic of a smarmy political antichrist.
If you’re a right-wing political wonk (or a dictator in need of a congressional lobbyist), the name might ring a bell. If you don’t know Roger Stone, don’t worry. You won’t get lost. Elections may be a game of Jenga, but Roger Stone’s story is as solid as a pyramid. Guess who’s on top.
Whatever your political persuasion, please check your moral compass at the door. Empty the popcorn bag too, because you’re going to need it, either to toss your cookies or hyperventilate.
Get Me Roger Stone will surely irk Democrats and Progressives. How can Republicans elect a candidate who acts like Ferris Bueller on crack while Democrats go all limp batting away juicy tidbits from anonymous sources?
How much of this unfair moral dichotomy has to do with Roger Stone? That depends on how much credit people are willing to give him.
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There is something breathtaking about this 64-year-old bodybuilder and dirty trickster, who dresses like Colonel Sanders one day and Sherlock Holmes the next. He’s onscreen in a lilac fedora and a custom-tailored version of Robert De Niro’s pin-stripe suit from Godfather 2. Presumably, he needs all those layers to accommodate his garter belt and black fishnet stockings – and the tubes of lube in every pocket.
Get Me Roger Stone is a roundabout indictment of the processes that allow vulgar liars to wield power. It’s also a scathing, sometimes funny portrait of a man who makes no apologies for winning, whatever the cost.
If you think Roger Stone might sue the filmmakers, think again. He signed on, with gusto. Why? Because “It’s better to be infamous than never famous at all.”
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That’s not a quote from a serial killer. It’s one of “Roger’s Rules.” These epithets appear onscreen, like dialogue cards from silent movies. Other rules include “Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack,” and “Nothing is on the level” – presumably because, when it comes to politics, Roger Stone has his thumb (this is a G-rated review) on the scale.
Despite his consent to a pre-election interview for this movie, the 45th President of the United States is unlikely to react with such Hannibal Lecter-y glee.
Get Me Roger Stone begins with Donald Trump at the podium of the 2016 Republican National Convention, promising “a break from the petty politics of the past.” As Trump speaks, the camera pulls back, over shoulders and patriotic signs. The shot tightens high up, in a small booth, where Roger Stone sits in darkened profile.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Get Me Roger Stone revels in this Wizard of Oz moment as some kind of culmination, an opportunity at long last fulfilled. Roger Stone pounces on opportunity. You can almost hear opportunity gasp at the jugular when he does.
Nixon poster from the CREEP era
This self-described agent provocateur was a right-wing boy wonder in the 1960s. His name came up at the Watergate hearings, with other accused bagmen for Richard Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP). At the time, Roger Stone was nineteen.
After working for his hero Richard Nixon, Stone, with his friend Paul Manafort, jerked the Young Republicans hard right, leaving moderates like Nelson Rockefeller in the dust and determining the direction of the party for decades to come.
Stone’s mentor was none other than Roy Cohn, chief counsel for Joseph McCarthy and prosecutor of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. It was Roy Cohn who introduced Roger Stone to Donald Trump.
Stone and his pal Manafort were the founding force behind the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC). The film makes it clear: no campaign was too small for smearing (John Melcher’s run for congress in 1970s Montana) or too large (the 1996 presidential election).
Roger Stone was pivotal in the scandal that took Dan Rather to his knees, and the scandal that made America view Elliot Spitzer with someone of the opposite sex in that same position. Stone may – or may not – have been an instigator in Florida in the so-called Brooks Brothers Riot – the Florida fracas that helped to stall vote counting long enough to snatch the 2000 presidential election from Al Gore.
You’d think a guy who goes to such trouble would possess a deep philosophical commitment to his goals. If there’s one weakness in Get Me Roger Stone, it’s that it doesn’t explore how Stone got this way. His mother appears briefly, in a wheelchair, to prove that he has a blood relative, and to reassure the audience that he does indeed have blood.
In a parade with Log Cabin Republicans, Stone touts that he’s pro-abortion, pro-gay, and pro-drug. Why has he worked to elect candidates whose stance on all these issues has been, at best, lukewarm? Stone doesn’t just work to defeat people who want the same things he does – he gets them to hire him, and like a cancer, he eats them from the inside.
Screenshot: Stone at 2010 gay parade in New York City
Roger Stone has one rule that’s more important than the others: Is this good for Roger Stone? If this principle works in politics, it’s even more fun when it’s for profit.
Get Me Roger Stone lays out Stone’s role as a founder and partner in Black Manafort Stone, one of the largest and most powerful lobbying firms in Washington D.C. Black Manafort Stone accepted payment to peddle influence for brutal dictators, like Mobutu Sese Seko and Ferdinand Marcos, and the vicious Jonas Savimbi.
Just when the audience doesn’t know how much more of this it can take, the movie works its way back to the 2016 Republican National Convention, where Roger Stone sits, above it all.
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Jeffrey Toobin, whose 2008 New Yorker article inspired this film, describes Roger Stone as “a malevolent Forrest Gump.” Stone is more than okay with that. He’s happy for people to hate him, whether it’s for what he’s done or what they think he’s done.
Some Republicans will be horrified at the movie. Some who are up for re-election in tight districts may feign horror and, covering their mouths, repeat the film’s title into a cell phone, “Get me Roger Stone.”
Democrats and Progressives like me are likely to swallow hard, shiver in their boots, and … do nothing.
