What a way to start a Friday. The “full” trailer for the Hunter Biden movie distributed by Breitbart (so … LOL) dropped today, and in it we have Gina Carano playing a secret service agent, John James as President Joe Biden, and Laurence Fox as Hunter Biden in My Son Hunter. I had heard about this movie, and I knew it was going to be … uh, interesting, given the biases of those behind it (biased in that they all hate the Biden administration, so!), and none of that prepared me for whatever on god’s green Earth this trailer is.
It took me a minute to realize what they were doing, given the fact that it starts with Carano’s character talking directly to the camera but then doesn’t continue that trend with anyone else until about halfway through the trailer (when it again goes back to Carano), but then seems to include Fox as Hunter Biden as well as Joe Biden. And what is that, you may ask? It’s them clearly going for a Goodfellas and I, Tonya feel with this movie, and so yes, I have something to say about it.
The trailer is very clearly setting up a tone in which films like both Goodfellas and I, Tonya have fallen into, which is telling a real life story through their characters telling said story to the camera throughout the film, and it makes for what I would label as dramedies (or a dark comedy, if you will). My Son Hunter seems to be a straight up pathetic parody of itself trying to make a movie of that caliber.
The film, directed by Robert Davi (you know, that guy from The Goonies?), is packed to the brim with very vocal conservatives, which begs the question: What did we f**king expect out of this?
The fall of Gina Carano
You may recall that Carano was climbing up in her career, and after her turn in the film Haywire, she had roles in both Deadpool and The Mandalorian. But then 2020 happened and she mocked the idea of specifying pronouns, got into conspiracy theories about masks, spread misinformation, and fumbled the Disney bag so hard that she turned to Ben Shapiro to lift herself back up. For someone who claimed that she wasn’t that political prior to her own downfall, she sure has taken a sharp turn into the right-wing mainstream.
So, her taking this role and starring in this movie is sadly now the least surprising bit of news.
Why does Joe Biden look like Ric Flair?
Outside of the obvious issues that I have with this movie (a great many things, but the real root of my anger is just that they’re pulling from my favorite genre of film), I do have a question about the … look of Joe Biden. Now, Biden’s look is pretty clearly defined. You can see it in the men who have played him on Saturday Night Live. (See, conservatives? We also make fun of our own!)
For the example in this case, let’s use Jason Sudeikis. He has the hairline, the vibe, and he typically would wear aviators while doing it. Because, frankly, it isn’t hard to make someone look like Joe Biden, and yet somehow, you’ve made John James look like wrestler Ric Flair, and uhhhhh, those are very different vibes.
Is this a comedy?
The film is in tone with both Goodfellas and I, Tonya, two movies that I would probably label as “dark comedies” because they are, for the great majority of them, funny, which is kind of the point. Also, I don’t know if the creators of this film are aware, but the tone of those films also lends itself to the audience feeling bad for the subject in question—like I, Tonya shined a light on what Tonya Harding went through prior to the 1994 Olympics and turned her from the villain many saw her as to someone they understood a bit more.
The same goes for Henry Hill. So really, what you’re doing with this genre choice is … making your largely Republican and conservative (not to mention Trumpian) audience … relate to the Biden administration and Hunter and Joe Biden? If that’s your goal, more power to you. If not, well, then you’re making a movie that fundamentally misunderstands the genre that it is functioning in.
(featured image: Neon)
