Recounting "Recount"

"Recount," HBO's story of the disputed 2000 presidential election, surprises in that it is much more about political gamesmanship than a conspiracy-minded take on the Florida results.

It's tilted toward the Gore camp's view that the hand-ballot recount never should have been stopped, with much of the story unfolding from former chief of staff/protagonist Ron Klain's standpoint. But the telepic doesn't dismiss the Bush camp's argument that Florida counties couldn't just be cherry picked. It's Gore's initial call for a hand-recount in just four counties, and not the entire state, that is cited as a key misjudgment in that it gave the Bush camp at least some moral high ground.

What the pic does best is show to the point at which Bush's team, led by James Baker (Tom Wilkinson), was at an advantage from the get-go, in instinct as well as sheer chutzpah. It is Baker who knew that their best hopes were with the Supreme Court, and that time was on their side. Meanwhile, Gore lost valuable time as Warren Christopher (John Hurt) fretted over the impact that a protracted dispute, or even a lawsuit, would have on the country --- a noble and naive position that ignored the Bush team's penchant for cutthroat gamesmanship.

"You know what is funny about all this? I am not even sure I like Al Gore," Klain says at one point, exasperated after Miami-Dade election officials end their  recount in the face of the now infamous "Brooks Brothers riot."

The film has a lighter touch, the best example of which is Laura Dern's portrayal of Katherine Harris as an easily swayed GOP puppet who, I'll say it, clings to her religion. A heavily made up Tom Wilkinson plays Baker, reciting lines chalk full of irony given what was to unfold in the Bush II years. Hurt's Christopher doesn't come across so much as prissy as he does a naive relic of the more gentlemanly politics of the past.

Earlier this week on "60 Minutes," Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told those still dwelling on the 2000 election to "get over it. It is so old by now."

True, but "Recount" proves just how much the wounds still sting. Otherwise, why would there still be so much interest in the project?

Ultimately the biggest blame for the election fiasco goes to the insanity of the election process itself: the hanging chads, the butterfly ballot, the politically motivated election officials, the chaos of doing hand recounts. The pic doesn't even have to state the obvious: That eight years later, election laws and procedures are still wildly different, and not much has changed.

Comments

[Rob]

Danny Strong's approach to documenting the events of 2000 leaves something to be desired. He hangs at length with Jim
Baker and Ron Klain, gives them carte blanche to read and change his script, and waits to talk to people like Warren Christopher and Bill Daley until he's begun shooting. In the case of Christopher, he doesn't even give the guy a copy of the script. Oh yeah, did he ever talk to Gore or Lieberman? Sounds like it'll be more fiction than truth.