Reagan

The Gipper gets a goober of a biopic -- schmaltzy, hagiographic and ham-handed -- though Dennis Quaid nails the portrait of his self-effacing charm hiding a steely resolve.

I dislike when critics interject their politics into reviews, but it’s hard to avoid when it comes to “Reagan,” the new biopic starring Dennis Quaid as the 40th president. To this day, there are some who curse his name, while others exalt him to a sort of political-celestial kingdom in heaven.

So to lay cards on the table, I don’t mind saying I consider FDR and Reagan to be the two great presidencies of the 20th century — in that order. I also don’t mind saying that “Reagan” doesn’t live up to the reputation of the man who’s most responsible for pounding the nails into the coffin of the Soviet Union.

They gave the Gipper a real goober of a biopic: schmaltzy, hagiographic and ham-handed. It’s shot in a gauzy sort of way with super-saturated colors and dialogue that sometimes clunks. At its worst it can feel like a Lifetime Channel movie.

I’ll say this: Quaid is the best reason to see it.

Though he doesn’t particularly look or sound like Reagan, he truly nails the man’s self-effacing, Midwestern charm hiding a steely resolve. The chin-dipping aw-shucks tic, often right before delivering a particularly good zinger, is spot-on. As is the slightly off-center, slant-y smile. Quaid mimics the speech pattern perfectly if not the timbre of the voice.

Just as an aside, have you ever noticed how so many truly consequential historic figures are distinctive-looking? In other words, you can’t regularly point to other people and say, “They look just like so-and-so.” Reagan falls into this category, too. Even professional hair and makeup crews can’t quite get right that odd wave in his forelocks.

(I think part of the reason there’s never been a memorable cinematic version of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is because they can’t find an actor who physically resembles him.)

Though it devotes some passing sequences to Reagan’s personal and political failings — his divorce from Jane Wyman (Mena Suvari), the Iran-Contra imbroglio — this film comes to exalt Reagan, not give him a gimlet-eyed journalistic examination.

You can tell a lot about the movie by who’s involved. Screenwriter Howard Klausner comes from the faith-based filmmaking sector, and director Sean McNamara is known for wholesome family fare like “Soul Surfer” and last year’s “On a Wing and a Prayer,” also starring Quaid, who has endorsed Donald Trump in the November election.

Other outspoken right-y actors like Jon Voight and Robert Davi have key roles — as Soviet commies, notably and hilariously — and “Hercules” star-turned-Twitter-troll Kevin Sorbo pops up in a bit part. One wonders if they signed up because of an affinity for telling Reagan’s story or because liberal Hollywood has stopped calling.

The story covers Reagan’s life from boyhood to the cusp of death, his mind failing from Alzheimer’s, though it spends most of its time on two sections: his rise from prewar B-movie actor to President of the Screen Actors to his switch from the Democratic to Republican parties in the early 1960s, which tracks his political awakening; and his eight years in the White House, with the 1981 assassination attempt and his famous 1987 Berlin Wall speech as narrative waypoints.

I keep beating the dead horse of saying movies are too long these days, so I’ll go ahead and give the carcass a few more licks: at 140 minutes, “Reagan” feels overstuffed, even to cover so weighty and varied a life.

The pacing flags badly in several points, especially around his SAG tenure and slow-burn dance with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (Aleksander Krupa), which wavers between hot enmity at a distance to cool rapprochement during in-person nuclear talks.

“Is there anything worse than an actor with a cause? Kill your career if you must, Ronny, but spare me your damn speeches,” Wyman taunts at one point, in an example of dialogue that sounds so very written.

The sections devoted to Reagan’s romance with second wife Nancy Davis (Penelope Ann Miller, back from showbiz Siberia) is a mix of fun and mushy. Nothing about Nancy Reagan’s reputed dragon queen ways is even sniffed — here she’s endlessly loving, supportive and subserviently feminine.

The onscreen pairing starts out authentic and romantic, but just gets to be a little much too much, like his pet name for her of “Nancy Pants.” I chortled at the scene where they turn up in the White House living quarters in matching red sweaters and TV tray dinners.

Don’t look for much on Reagan’s children with either wife; they’re just about totally absent.

The film uses a strange framing device, and one I don’t think particularly works. Voight plays Viktor Ivanov, a real-life KGB spook who made a lifelong study of Reagan. Set in the early 2010s, Ivanov plays host to a young up-and-coming Russian honcho who wants an education in how the U.S.S.R. fell to the Americans, so everything we see is a flashback through that lens.

Ivanov is veritably in awe of Reagan, claiming to have him pegged as an important enemy as far back as the 1940s when he was doing war bonds reels. Supposedly they gave Reagan the code name of “The Crusader,” and the whole thing is pretty laughable, in a “We loathed him, because of how awesome he was” kinda way.

I unabashedly admire Reagan, if for no other reason than his amiable approach to politics seems positively quaint these days, best summed up in his relationship with Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill (Dan Lauria), ‘We’ll fight like hell until 6 p.m., then laugh and share a whiskey together.’

I’ll prognosticate right now this movie is going to get savaged by movie critics who, like journalists in general, tilt very hard to the left and seem more and more hostile to the notion of approaching what they cover with a sense of detachment. Part of me wishes they had made a better picture just so the reactions wouldn’t be so terribly predictable.

Also, of course, because Reagan deserved better.