After some behind-the-scenes battles, Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice will indeed see the light of day before this year’s election. Premiering at Cannes Film Festival, the film stars Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump, alongside Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, and Martin Donovan. Now set for an October 11 release from Briarcliff Entertainment, the first trailer has arrived on the night of the first debate between Trump and Kamala Harris.
Here’s the synopsis: “A young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan), eager to make his name as a hungry second son of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the cutthroat attorney who would help create the Donald Trump we know today. Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé—someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win.”
Luke Hicks said in his review, ” “For a biopic about Donald Trump, The Apprentice is surprisingly concerned with other things. The film has exactly what you might expect and somehow a curiosity around every corner, a familiar historical intrigue firmly planted in a tonal shock. The shock comes from its subtlety and perspective, the latter of which has a unique bent for a film about an ex-President debuting in an election year that spotlights his third campaign. As you can imagine, there’s no shortage of American directors looking to cinematically take down Trump. But, for now, none of them get to. At least not as blatantly as Ali Abbasi, the international director who won the job to tell the story of the debased mogul from the early ’70s to the mid-80s. “