MovieChat Forums > The Butler (2013) Discussion > Surprisingly bad

Surprisingly bad

posted 8 years ago by Rizzyay
2 replies | jump to latest

I was surprised how much I didn't like this film even though I expected to like it. It was badly paced and edited, the dialogue was so laughable I actually laughed out loud from time to time, and the casting - except for the ever-wonderful Forest Whitaker - was just... oh man, I don't even know how to discribe it. The Kennedy performance was so bad they actually had to write "Kennedy administration" on screen to let people know that this guy who doesn't look like him, sound like him, or act like him, was actually supposed to be JFK. And this holds true for all presidents. Except for Reagan, surprisingly, as I wouldn't have expected Alan Rickman to make a good Reagan performance!

Too bad. Such an interresting subject. Also, to comment the political message at the end: I thought the whole point of anti-racism was to NOT have jobs given to people based on the color of their skin. That was, I believe, a big part of Dr. Martin Luther King's famous "dream", wasn't it?

[–] pereira-filipesantos 8 years ago

From the trailers I saw I thought Alan Rickman was on the spot in terms of characterization as Reagan.
I think Robin Williams as Eisenhower was not bad either.

[–] ajhatz 8 years ago

Just watched it on Netflex and yeah, this should have been a made for TV movie. It's just a run of the mill black life experience movie set during the civil rights movement with the White House as a back drop. Inserting five minutes of President impressions into it didn't mean anything.