Review: Ali Abbasi’s Donal Trump biopic hits the big screens just before the US Election

Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump satirical biopic The Apprentice has just hit the big screen cinemas, just before the Trump’s second run for US President.

This film is not about the TV show Trump hosted, but about how become who he is by learning from his mentor Roy Cohn, who was ruthless real estate attorney who was a major New York power broker in the ’70s and ’80s after famously serving as a top aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy.

The Trump-Cohn relationship is well renowned. But Abbasi exposes how Trump learned to be so exploitive in his business dealings. We learn how Trump used his power, privilege and bigotry to benefit him. What is interesting is how he learned to be a bigot from a gay man who later experienced bigotry because of his AIDS.

Written by Gabriel Sherman and starring a well casted trio of Sebastian Stan as Trump, Jeremy Strong as Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump. The film did play at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) but not the Vancouver International film Festival (VIFF), the film also failed to get picked up at Cannes. That was surely due at least in part to a cease-and-desist letter from Trump lawyers. Trump’s campaign spokesman called the movie “pure fiction” while the filmmakers call their script “fact-based. The film has finally been released widely because of the timeless of the election. The film is worth the watch to give you an insight of what Trump is about.