I'll confess straight away, political thrillers aren't my favourite genre of film mainly because I just find them depressing and representative of most of what I hate about modern politics. But that aside I did quite enjoy the George Clooney directed and starring Ides of March.
Clooney takes a supporting role to the wonderfully talented Ryan Gosling (how many films has he had out this year???) who plays Stephen Meyers, the idealistic senior campaign team member for presidential candidate Senator Mike Morris (Clooney).
And of course it is about dirty politics, doing what has to be done to win the votes regardless of whether it goes against policy or personal morals. It's also about loyalty and ambition.
It is intelligent and superbly acted with the likes of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Evan Rachel Wood among the supporting cast. There are some nice twists and turns to keep the action moving, a growing tension and a central character with whom you can get behind.
But at the end of it, it is a political thriller and superb performances and quality film-making aside it isn't going to be one of the most memorable films of the year for me.
I'm going to give it 70%. On IMDb it's got an audience rating of 75% and a Metacritic score of 67%. While on Rotten Tomatoes it has a critics rating of 85% and 76% of audiences gave it 3.5/5 or higher.
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