Bracketed by entertitles, the film plays like a fly-on-the-wall documentary, cutting between campaign adverts, press conferences, and behind-the-scenes footage from all of these moments, to show the candidate’s corruption and disregard for the norms and rules of campaigns, democracy and any other structure you can think of.
D’Angelo’s playbook could be seen as Trumpian - claiming to be taken out of context; claiming to be a victim of a smear campaign. While amusing, the montages showing D’Angelo talking out both sides of his mouth feel like they could be re-enactments of Trump’s news coverage. This is probably more a case of comic exaggeration being echoed by reality, rather than any unique insight.
A lot of D’Angelo’s tactics would only work in a pre-Internet era: He recasts his family for a campaign video and fakes an assassination attempt to put him ahead in the polls.
Sadly relevant in its portrayal of how populist strongmen can rise to power, the film ends a punchline which feels ripped from today’s headlines - and the role of media in focusing on coverage which will garner ratings.
While he is ultimately run out of town, despite/because of his escapades D’Angelo is revealed to be writing his memoirs, to be published by Simon & Schuster.
Despite running 20 mins, this short film exemplifies DeVito’s specific persona as a star:
Gleefully narcissistic, craven, greedy and selfish, DeVito remains likeable because of how little remorse he shows, and how much joy his characters take in getting one over.
DeVito’s persona is of a born carny, a conman forever looking for one more sap to bleed dry - and this mini-epic is a prime vehicle for his hyperbolic brand of pop misanthropy.
The pure cynicism of the final punchline - no matter how bad or awful, someone will pay for this story, and nothing matters if there is profit to be made - feels like a mission statement for the rest of DeVito’s career as a filmmaker.
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