Directed by: Jay Roach
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Anthony Mackie, Melissa Leo, Frank Langella, Stephen Root, Bradley Whitford
Being President of the United States is a thankless task, yet there are people willing to step up and assume the office every four years. President Lyndon Baines Johnson inherited a shit storm when he assumed the Presidency after Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963. The Vietnam War was in its infancy, pressure came from Martin Luther King to enact a meaningful civil rights bill, and the 1964 election was fast approaching. These are only three of the issues encountered by LBJ in All The Way, which despite its wealth of material and its fascinating performances, manages just to be ok. It lacks power and loses focus because it tries to cover too much ground in its over two hour running time. A movie about the civil rights bill enactment in itself would be sufficient. Much of All The Way feels like it is racing to touch all of the bases.
Bryan Cranston won a Tony Award for this role which he now brings to this HBO movie. He is barely recognizable behind the makeup and he immerses himself completely in the role. Cranston captures the straight-talking, informal Johnson right down to holding meetings while squatting on the toilet. We feel Johnson from the inside out. How many actors could really get to the heart of such a historical figure? Daniel Day-Lewis surely did in Lincoln and now Cranston does here.
Johnson raises eyebrows in his first speech after assuming office by promising the passage of a civil rights bill. The "Dixiecrats", Southern state Democrats opposed to desegregation, are led by Sen. Richard Russell (Langella), Johnson's best friend and mentor. At first, Johnson assures Russell his speech was all talk to quiet the King faction, but after meeting with King, he plunges in to get the bill passed. Johnson's meetings with King are tricky, with a lot of quid pro quo happening especially in relation to future legislation King promises to back. The voting rights section is such a sticking point that Johnson realizes he may have to pass the act without the section. We see deft political maneuvering here and it is among the best parts of the movie.
Mackie may not resemble King physically, but he captures the spirit and determination of the slain civil rights leader. He too feels the pressure from his people to get the bill passed. King himself has to walk a tightrope and compromise in order to achieve his objectives. I recall Anthony Hopkins in Nixon (1995) stating, "I've learned politics is the art of compromise." All The Way truly understands this.
But once the civil rights bill is passed, All The Way tackles Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, an arrest of LBJ's closest advisor, the upcoming 1964 election in which LBJ may not even be his own party's candidate, dealings with Russell, and the Democratic National Convention where the South promises to walk out if black delegates are recognized and seated. It is a lot on Johnson's plate, but it is too much for the movie to navigate through. Some of the issues are tackled and discarded without payoffs. We feel a true sense of the pressure on LBJ during this tumultuous time, but the movie relegates Lyndon's wife Lady Bird (Leo) to the sidelines, nodding approvals and standing by her husband. I don't recall one scene in which the husband and wife actually talk, which is a letdown. Lady Bird was well-educated and smart. She certainly lent credible advice to her husband during his Presidency, but in All The Way she is muted.
I nearly neglected to mention J. Edgar Hoover's (Root) involvement in All The Way. There is an entire subplot (based on fact) in which Hoover attempted to blackmail King from accepting his Nobel Peace Prize with recordings of his extramarital affairs. This is crammed into an already crowded movie as well. I read the Broadway play on which All The Way is based contained a handful of characters and the events depicted in the movie are only discussed, but not shown. Because film is a more visual medium, the actual events were depicted here and filling in blanks where none were needed. When All The Way works, it really works. But it is not sustained, mostly because the filmmakers didn't want to leave out anything.
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