The Butler is most likely another title in the long line of Oscar-baiting prestige pictures which the Academy forgot about come January. It may get nominations for Best Makeup and Best Costume Design, but that's most likely going to be it. The performances are, for the most part, fine (with a few notable exceptions, and not of the good kind), but unlikely to garner Oscar consideration. It's safe and middlebrow, but not memorable enough to stick in voters' minds. It's the next
Hyde Park at Hudson,
The Soloist, and
many others.
With all that in mind, it's not that bad. It's okay, but not exceptional in any way. It does have some bracing sequences (namely, a sit-in intercut with the titular butler setting the White House table), but most of the time, it just sits there, and then politely excuses itself when the film ends. I like Forest Whitaker a lot as an actor, and he's certainly the right man to play the part of someone whose job is to stay as invisible as possible, given that his trademark is quiet dignity. Oprah Winfrey doesn't get much to do at all as the butler's wife except drink and dance, but she does fine. In a phrase I though I'd never utter, Cuba Gooding Jr. gives one of the best performances in the film as the butler's coworker at the White House. David Oyelowo does a good job as the butler's more revolutionary son, although he's mostly a plot convenience to bring the Black Panthers, Freedom Riders, and Martin Luther King into the story. Terrence Howard gets almost nothing to do besides act drunk and hit on Oprah's character. The rest of the cast is where some of the film's problems lie.
This film is distractingly star-studded. From the beginning, the precedent is set. Mariah Carey plays the butler's mother, and she gets no lines except a scream while she's being raped. The rapist, the plantation owner whose workers include the young butler and his family, is played by Alex Pettyfer, best known to me as Channing Tatum's protégé in
Magic Mike. And as if that wasn't enough, Vanessa Redgrave shows up for maybe three minutes at the person who gives young butler a job in the house after Pettyfer shoots his father to death. Then, we get to the Presidents. Robin Williams as Dwight Eisenhower fares the worst, if only because he gets two scenes, and he does little in either one of them. James Marsden as JFK is the least distracting of the bunch, although he also doesn't get a whole lot to do. Liev Schreiber as LBJ puts on a ridiculous Texas accent, and then we get to see him on the toilet in one scene. John Cusack as Richard Nixon is downright laughable, and Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan isn't far behind (you can almost hear him struggle to keep his British accent in check). Every President in the movie is a nothing character, and the movie would probably be better without them, or at least with less well-known actors playing them. And surely, Lee Daniels would know that Philip Baker Hall and Dan Hedaya are still around to do Nixon again.
Grade: C+
- There's one scene in the film that has such an obvious conclusion that the conclusion might as well come at the front of the scene. We see Whitaker and Oprah dancing to
Soul Train, when Oprah says something about their son (who went off to Vietnam) not sending them a letter. Can you guess where that leads?
- Oh, and I almost forget to mention that this movie feels long. It isn't that long (under two hours), but it feels like it goes on forever at times. At some points, you'd think that the movie is almost over, but in reality, it hadn't even gotten to Richard Nixon yet.
Man of Steel had better pacing than this movie.