PRIMARY COLORS (WIDESCREEN) [IMPORT]

Details

• Release Year: 1998
• Genre: Comedy, Drama
• Plot: This work is the barely fictionalized account of candidate Bill Clinton in 1992 via the character Southern Governor Jack Stanton. Joe Klein joined Newsweek as a political reporter and columnist during the 1992 US Presidential race, and followed then candidate Bill Clinton on the road. As such, Klein dutifully conveys the youthful exuberance for a new candiate, along with the sense of awe at his determination, drive, and intelligence. All along, he also displays the shocking lack of personal morals of a 'natural' candidate for the office. Further, he shows the inner deal-making that everyone connected with the campaign makes to achieve the vision they started with, no matter how ugly the cheating, talented candidate gets on his road to the election. Klein tells the story from the 1st person perspective of a sophomorish campaign manager, Henry Burton, that just happens to be a grandson of a black civil rights leader. They join the Southern Governor at a talk given on adult education, in which Gov. Stanton cries as he tells the students how they were braver than his uncle--a World War II veteran that earned the Medal of Honor, but went home and never took a job because he was too embarassed to tell anyone he was illiterate. We next find out this story is not true! Despite this, Burton decides to join the campaign, and works many of the standard issues--such as fighting off scurrilous attacks by opposing candidates, and captured and doctored cell phone conversations, etc. Burton walks into the campaign headquarters (a hotel suite) to find the Governor coming out of a bedroom not completely dressed, and a disheveled librarian they had just met at a school they had attended. Of course, Susan Stanton, the Governor's wife, is nowhere to be found. The team flies to another destination to meet up with Mrs. Stanton, as she has been campaigning for her husband among their party elite in that state. Burton is eventually introduced to Libby Holden (Kathy Bates), whose job is to defend the President by combating the attacks from all comers. She does so with ruthless abandon, but also with a strict moral code: There apparently is something noble about stopping the attacks of others, but it is almost reprehensible about digging up the dirt on others -- essentially attacking them first. We come to know that Gov. Stanton is a philanderer of extraordinary magnitude, but an inspired genious at politics. Unfortunately, this extends to sleeping with a 17-year-old babysitter, the librarian they just recently met, a long-term affair with another woman, and the list goes on
• Cast: John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates, Adrian Lester, Maura Tierney, Larry Hagman, Diane Ladd, Paul Guilfoyle, Rebecca Walker, Caroline Aaron, Tommy Hollis, Rob Reiner, Ben Jones, J.C. Quinn, Allison Janney, Robert Klein, Mykelti Williamson, James Denton, Leontine Guilliard, Monique Ridge-Williams, Ned Eisenberg, Brian Markinson, Geraldo Rivera, Charlie Rose, Larry King, O'Neal Compton, Kevin Cooney, Bonnie Bartlett, Cynthia O'Neal, Chelcie Ross, John Vargas, Tony Shalhoub, Bianca Lawson, Robert Cicchini, William Stanford Davis, Harrison Young, Rolando Molina, Ross Benjamin, Stacy Edwards, Kristoffer Ryan Winters, Susan Kussman, Vickilyn Reynolds, Robert Symonds, Gia Carides, Robert Easton, Scott Burkholder, Bill Maher, Lu Elrod, Michael Haley, Henry Woronicz, Daryce Richman, Rosalie Peck, Susan Forristal, James Earl Jones, Eric Boyd, Clark Heathcliff Brolly, James DuMont, Amaris Dupree, Tom Griffith, Noah Michael Levine, Richard Livingston, Carlos A. Montes, Dorie Neal, Brian Shakti, Pete Tittl, Lesa Whittington, Tony Winters, Jordan Ancel, Allan Wayne Anderson, Stephen Austin-Skordiles, Dara J. Bragg, Greg Bronson, Michael W. Broomer, Marian Caparrós, Sophia Choi, Matt Clifford, Barbara Conway, Kacee DeMasi, Freddie Joe Farnsworth, Phil Faroudja, Anthony Michael Frederick, Frank Jennings, Spencer Kayden, Nick Loeb, Polli Magaro, Jean Martirez, Paul McMichael, Greg McWhorter, Larry Mendte, John Milford, Christopher C. Murphy, Tim Murphy, Msaada Nia, Gary Pike, Kevin Richardson, Rocco, Rocco Salata, Larry F. Scott, Lorna Scott, Sandy E. Scott, Renee Spei, Jimmy Steinfeldt, Steve Teamkin, Lynn Wanlass, Charlie Weirauch, Tim R. Worley, Mike Nichols, Joe Klein, Elaine May
• Director: Mike Nichols
• Runtime: 2:24
• Company: Universal Pictures
• Media Format: Movie