Movie review: 'Bombshell' explodes on the screen

Roger Ailes has been dead for just shy of 31 months, but the egocentric founder of Fox News would be thrilled to know he's been the subject of three major productions in a single year: the documentary "Divide and Conquer," the fine Showtime miniseries "The Loudest Voice" and now the glitziest of the bunch, Jay Roach's star-studded Oscar-contender, "Bombshell." Is Ailes, a proven serial sexual harasser, really deserving of this much attention?

That's a tough call. He did do the impossible in building Fox News into a cable-TV juggernaut and political power player. But he also destroyed the careers and well-being of many of his female employees, nearly all of them – as the title suggests – bombshells. He hired them for their legs (short skirts and dresses mandatory) and looks, preferably icy blondes; just like Hitchcock, with whom Ailes shared an iconic portly profile. Who wouldn't want to be pawed by this stud? Ah, well, no one?

Certainly not former Miss America Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman). She filed the (yes, there's that word again!) bombshell lawsuit that finally convinced Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch (Malcolm McDowell) to can the man generating him $1.5 billion per year in profits. Ouch! That must have really pained the oily Aussie. The axing literally sucked the life out of Ailes, who died just months later from his lifelong bugaboo, hemophilia; although there are some who believe he wasn't human enough to bleed.

From behind layers of prosthetic latex and a fat suit, John Lithgow (always one to enjoy playing the heavy) provides no reason to believe Ailes was in fact mortal. And if by chance there was any blood, it surely ran colder than a mountain stream. No wonder he earned the behind-his-back moniker "Jabba the Hut." Countless foxes at Fox News felt his fat, grubby hands on their butts. And those were the "lucky" ones. Many like Margot Robbie's composite character, Kayla, were forced to perform sexual "favors" as part of his gross quid pro quo corporate ladder.

Then there are the Megyn Kellys of the Fox fold who slapped the handsy boss away like a pathetic gnat, but then did nothing to stop him from harassing others, at least not until it was too late. Charlize Theron, in a role that could well land her a second Oscar, nails it in capturing both Kelly's gorgeousness and unique voice cadence. But this is no hagiography. She convincingly renders Kelly as a prime-time anchor who talks big on-air but cowers when it comes to protecting less powerful female coworkers from Ailes' assaults.

That doesn't mean Theron doesn't let the guilt trip Kelly lays upon herself show in her every expression. She wants to speak up, but she wants her job security more. Yet, Kelly gets the majority of the screen time, not that I'm complaining. Theron is sensational. But the real hero, Kidman's Gretchen Carlson, is given short shrift by Roach and screenwriter Charles Randolph ("The Big Short"). You might say, as journalists often do, the twosome buried the lead.

After all, it was Carlson who got screwed (figuratively) and came up with the idea of tricking Ailes into cutting his own throat after he yanked her from "Fox and Friends" and exiled her to the dreaded 2 p.m. time slot. She even lost that show when she used it to promote gun control (a definite Fox no-no) and female empowerment. But by then, she'd secretly taped enough bad "goods" on her boorish boss to nail his butt to the wall. Soooo cathartic!

Kidman is terrific, too, playing her – as did Kidman's dearest friend, Naomi Watts, in the Showtime series – with a steely resolve you can't help but admire. But where "The Loudest Voice" did right by Gretchen Carlson, this version kicks her to the background in order to accentuate the less interesting Kelly and Fox everywoman, Kayla. Might Roach have failed to practice what he's preaching by giving higher profiles to the younger, more stunning looking women? I'd say so.

As portrayed, neither Kelly nor Kayla are as compelling, as Carlson and Kate McKinnon's lesbian-in-hiding staffer, Jess Carr. We, or at least I, crave to know more about them, especially McKinnon's character trying to keep her gay lifestyle under wraps in a sexually charged heterosexual, male-dominated environment like the Fox newsroom. That's where the more interesting story lay.

Instead, Roach and Randolph (two men, imagine that!) provide a surface reading of what transpired at Fox News in the 18 months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, a contest in which Fox was heavily in the bag for Trump. Far too much time is allotted to the already talked-to-death feud between Kelly and Trump, who she shamed on the first night of the Republican debates by nailing him on his habit of calling women pigs and dogs. The Tweeter-In-Chief kindly responded the following day, suggesting Kelly may have been hosting a visit from her Aunt Flow at the time. That's our president, folks!

Anyhoo, whoever picked up a paper or watched TV in the summer of 2015 is already well-attuned to that whole brouhaha and doesn't need to be told over and over how unfair the MAGA gang's response (numerous threats of violence) was to Kelly. But countless scenes revert to the threats on her and her family. Am I really supposed to feel sorry for a high-profile TV star earning millions per year for expressing her controversial opinions (Santa Claus is white, by the way. She said so!)? I think she has enough cash to hire security, something not available to the millions of abused wives in the U.S. who don't have that luxury. Ah, but I digress.

Lithgow is better than expected as Ailes, but he's not nearly as commanding as Russell Crowe's portrayal in "The Loudest Voice." And if you watched it (and you really should if you haven't) there's nary a nugget of information here that wasn't presented there. Roach's version is snazzier looking, and he gives the Fox women a larger profile. But the substance just isn't detectable. It's basically a candy-colored, go-girl shout-out to the #MeToo movement – and a pandering one at that.

It pretty much ignores the good side (yes, there was one, albeit tiny) of Ailes, who built a network from scratch and championed on-air gay talent like Shep Smith and hired more (mostly white) women than any other network. Yes, that was largely because he wanted more treats in his personal candy jar, but as Jeanine Pirro (Allana Uback) points out, a lot of those women wouldn't be where they are without Roger.

If it were up to him what happened at Fox would have stayed at Fox. But then to his misfortune the news became the news. He was justly exposed in the way his victims were forced to expose themselves to him. If you ask me, that's rightful justice; and "Bombshell" delivers it, maybe not with a bang, but a loud enough boom to wake up an America that for too long has been gifted to pigs like Ailes.

___

(c)2019 The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Mass.

Visit The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Mass. at www.patriotledger.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.