LBJ (2017)

Sorry, this movie sucks

So much average

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

LBJ undid almost everything Kennedy stood for, and it's almost common knowledge these days that he was probably involved with the assassinations of both Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King!

Great acting all around. The rest of this movie is a total train wreck. Directing is horrendous. Editing is pointless and annoying. Screenplay is absurdly dumbed down and misses some of the most important time periods both for the man and the country. Flashing back and forth to the point of dizziness. Music is saccharine. A truly shameful effort

I remember Lyndon B. Johnson quite well from the 60s, the man who made possible a social revolution that the Alt right is doing its best to demolish, but who also enlarged the war in Vietnam and left us with a quagmire that haunts us to this day. Although there's a good film out there with Randy Quaid as LBJ Woody Harrelson will be as definitive a Johnson as Raymond Massey was a Lincoln. Harrelson really does come across like LBJ, both the public image and from some of the saltier memoirs of the times. He had both a temper and a command of the fouler parts of the English language. Harrelson is also well matched with Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lady Bird Johnson.A whole life story might one day be filmed either for the big or small screen. The various portions of Johnson's life might make a great miniseries. What we are concerned here with is the years 1960 to 1964 when he is chosen by John F. Kennedy as his Vice Presidential running mate. It was a demotion according to Johnson and two history. No one as majority leader ever had a better grasp of the Senate than Johnson, he was the second most powerful man in government after President Eisenhower. These also were the years that the Civil Rights Revolution kicked into high gear. The white south and those who represented it, all Democrats then, a carryover from the Civil War. were determined to preserve their 'way of life'. The south had a lot of hopes and dreams invested in a southern president, but the country was ready for something wholly different. As Senate Majority Leader Johnson saw the passage of two Civil Rights laws, watered down though in 1957 and 1960.John and Robert Kennedy are played by Jeffrey Donovan and Michael Stahl-David. The contrast in the character of the two brothers is shown here. JFK the more coolly detached and Bobby the more passionate. It made it possible for Jack Kennedy to work with Lyndon. It also made it possible for Bobby to have an unrelenting hatred for LBJ. Their personal feud shaped a lot of the history of the latter part of the last century.When Johnson was in the House Of Representatives his mentor was Sam Rayburn fellow Texan and Speaker of the House. In the Senate it was Richard B. Russell of Georgia, courtly southerner of the upper class plantation south and chair of the Armed Services Committee. Played here by Richard Jenkins, Russell show Johnson all the levers of power and when to use them. Also where all the bodies are buried in Washington, DC. It was with Russell's support with the southern bloc that Johnson became the Senate Majority Whip in third year in the Senate, minority leader in his fifth year and Majority Leader in the seventh year. There relationship has induced much speculation to this day.LBJ is a slice of 60s history and love him for his social revolutionary war on poverty and hate him for the sinking quagmire of Vietnam, LBJ left his mark on the country. And Woody Harrelson has left his mark on LBJ.

This film tells the story of a long serving politician who is made the vice president. He becomes the president due to unfortunate circumstances.I think Woody Harrelson is great in this film as LBJ. The story is adequately engaging, and the ending speech is very captivating.