Bryan Cranston Shines as Lyndon Johnson in ‘All the Way’ [View all]

[elleng]

'Bryan Cranston brings his Tony Award-winning interpretation of President Lyndon B. Johnson to television on Saturday night in an adaptation of the Robert Schenkkan play “All the Way,” and it’s still quite a sight to behold, just as it was on Broadway in 2014.

Nothing beats witnessing this kind of larger-than-life portrayal onstage, of course. But the television version, presented by HBO, offers plenty of rewards, allowing Mr. Cranston to work the close-ups and liberating him from the confines of a theater set. In his hands, this accidental president comes across as an amazing bundle of contradictions, someone who seems at once too vulgar for the job and just right for it.

Mr. Schenkkan adapted his own play (which also won a Tony) for HBO, and he and the director, Jay Roach, have quickened the pace a bit. The slice of history, though, remains the same: Johnson’s pivotal first year in office, from his swearing in after John F. Kennedy’s assassination through his 1964 campaign for election to a full term.

The first half of the film, its most compelling stretch, focuses on Johnson’s wheeling and dealing to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. Other prominent figures of the era are manipulated by this master of political hardball: senators like Hubert H. Humphrey (Bradley Whitford) and Richard B. Russell Jr. (Frank Langella); J. Edgar Hoover (Stephen Root); the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Anthony Mackie). Some, especially King and other black leaders, are quite good at manipulation themselves.

Given all we hear about the current climate in Washington, “All the Way” is enough to make you misty for the days when horse-trading in the interest of securing significant achievements was what national politicians did. Not that the film gilds this era. We hear some of the actual arguments used to oppose civil rights legislation (sometimes via archival clips of George Wallace and others), and they’re mighty ugly. Is the verbiage today any different? The film invites us to make the comparison.'>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/arts/television/review-bryan-cranston-shines-as-lyndon-johnson-in-all-the-way.html?