If you weren’t fed up with the sight and sound of Donald Trump, here’s his supervillain origin story. It would be hard to think of anything worse, but the presence of Ali Abassi (Border, Holy Spider) at the helm and Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong heading the cast is enough to pique the interest. Sadly, despite attempting to excavate some of the former President’s psychology through a twisted master and tutor relationship, The Apprentice does little other than tick off the boxes of Trump the persona, leaving little else to justify its existence.

The Apprentice follows the young Trump (Stan) struggling under the stern gaze of tycoon father Fred (Martin Donovan) while dreaming of remaking seedy Taxi Driver-era New York in his own gaudy image. He makes the acquaintance of ruthless lawyer Roy Cohn (Strong) who takes the aspiring demagogue under his vulture’s wing. Trump proves an apt pupil, but what happens when the student becomes the master?

The first half set in the 70s is at least pacey and looks like a grainy artefact of the age rather than a recreation. It’s dramatically jarring to see the man who would be Trump knocking on doors chasing rent for his slumlord father, and the early scenes between Strong and Stan depict a mouldable Trump at the imperious mercy of a truly amoral character. Come the 80s, there’s a sudden shift and the recognisable Trump persona is in full force, with Abassi and writer Gabriel Sherman failing to show their working. Here the film truly loses its way and becomes overtly parodic, with a horrendous scene of rape perpetrated against first wife Ivana (a wasted Maria Bakalova) feeling obscenely out of place.

Stan does a great job of salvaging something of a character from the satire-proof cartoon we know Trump to be. But he’s not given the opportunity to dig deep enough to find any actual humanity. Christian Bale‘s Dick Cheney in Vice and Josh Brolin‘s George W. Bush in W. both play on heightened versions of their subjects’ media depictions, but they feel like they contain some insight into the real people. Despite Stan’s best efforts, his Trump is a trifle of eccentricities and pathologies. Jeremy Strong fares better, perhaps because Roy Cohn is a less known quantity (here, at least). He’s definitely playing in a comfortable Succession-esque sandpit, but does the impossible in eliciting a certain twinge of empathy for an otherwise irredeemable cunt.

Performances and a believably grimy aesthetic aside, The Apprentice has little to say about the nature of its subject. There’s nothing we don’t already know about Donald Trump. The film has slumped in America, with one commentator positing that none of Trump’s fans want to see anything remotely critical of the man, and the rest of the US are sick of him. It’s difficult not to sympathise completely with that assessment. For anyone interested in a portrait of sheer monstrousness, this is not it either. Apart from the rape, the film is rather biting with its gums. There’s also no real insight about power, about influence, corruption, or demagoguery. It’s unfortunately likely it will be forgotten far earlier than its subject.

In cinemas nationwide from Fri 18 Oct 2024