In a measure of full disclosure I must say I am not a big fan of the heavily fictionalized bio-flick. Why would I want to watch Will Smith pretend to be Muhammad Ali when I could just watch the actual Muhammad Ali in When We Were Kings? Why watch Walk the Line when I have over a hundred Johnny Cash songs in my library? I guess bio-flick are a little better when I do not know much about the subject like The Loudest Voice about Roger Ailes whom basically all I know about is that he ran Fox News before being brought down by multiple sexual harassment claims.
Granted, The Loudest Voice is not a bio-flick, it is a miniseries about the man that is spread out across seven episodes. This is not be confused with the actually Roger Ailes bio-flick coming at the end of this year starring John Lithgow. Two competing Roger Ailes projects? I kind of the miss the days of dueling asteroid flicks. This show features Russell Crowe as the head of Fox News with a couple hundred extra pounds and about as much makeup. Each episode takes a year in the life of the man, starting with the launch of Fox News in 1995. The actually first scene is Ailes getting fired by Jack Dorsey as the head of CNBC right when MSNBC was about to be launched. Ironically, not going to CNN was a big part of the severance package.
The opening of the second episode begins with Ailes having to deal will Bill O’Reilly getting handsy (weirdly the biggest star in Fox News history does not get a fictionalize character, but is only mentioned), and about an hour later, a plane flies into the World Trade Center. Then we get another decent jump to 2008 when the third episode starts with a clenched fist watching Obama’s speech after locking up the Democratic nomination for president. I do not know why they portrayed Ailes as hating Obama so much considering the president was a rating boon for Fox News. Then that episodes ends with Ailes uttering the phrase, make America great again.” Yeah. I do not even want to mention how the fourth episode starts but I highly recommend just skipping the first five minutes of this episode. From there, the rest of the episode focuses on Fox News war on Obama. Grant it is somewhat amusing how everyone in the fear-mongering montage turned out to be.
No O’Reilly and no Megyn Kelly who reportedly was a late cut from the script (though Charlize Theron does play her in the movie) though Naomi Watts does show up as Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman takes the role in the movie) but does not get much screen time in the episode I saw. Instead we get a lot of behind the scenes moments with the real people you probably have never heard of. Sienna Miller plays Ailes wife (Connie Britton in the movie) who also worked at CNBC but seems very bored after being laid off and Roger has no interest in working with her again. That is probably because he has a side piece played by Annabelle Wallis, a Fox News booker. Seth McFarlane, yes that Seth McFarlane, plays someone that Ailes actually pouches from CNBC to be the Fox News PR guy. And in the most Seth MacFarlane way shouts, “Money Honey!” in his first line.
Just two weeks ago when reviewing Showtime’s other new show City on a Hill, I had to wonder if the creators made a period pierce so they could be as sexist and racist as they wanted for the sake of historical accuracy, and though the real life person The Loudest Voice was definitely a pervert and possibly a racist, the show gleefully show Ailes rewatching one of his anchors describe the Obamas greeting each other as a possible “terrorist fist jab.” Just the whole thing makes me queasier than most horror movies. Maybe it is apropos that the show is being produced by Blumhouse who made such movies as The Purge and Get Out.
The Loudest Voice airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.
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