I agree. If you haven't already, you should check out Otto Preminger's "Advise and Consent" and Franklin J. Schaffner's "The Best Man." The latter was written by Gore Vidal. Both are good movies and deal very much with partisan politics of one kind or another.

I had forgotten about that. Really interesting of Demme to make that point (and interesting of him to do so with such subtlety). All in all, I have a really hard time thinking of movies with fictional politicians (and especially Presidents) who have clear political leanings. Even that show Commander in Chief with Geena Davis, which DID spell out their party affiliations, got around making a message by having the President be a Republican and the VP (Davis) be a Democrat who felt the need to nonetheless follow her President's will after inheriting the office. Ugh. I just wish that touching partisan politics in movies (and TV, since I mentioned a TV show right there) didn't always have to be so closeted.

Thanks for writing. Always good to hear (or rather, read) your point of view.
My problem with "The Contender" was that Joan Allen's character was just TOO perfect. Couldn't she have had perhaps one, however minor, flaw…? Say, she didn't like chocolate, or was a slob at home, or didn't know how to make enchiladas — or perhaps was a poor backgammon player??

As for most filmmakers being squeamish about letting us know who is a Republican, who is a Democrat in their movies, I'm sure you're right. I remember one such instance: Jonathan Demme's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. Strangely, Meryl Streep's Evil Mom turned out to be a veiled Democrat. You can see on a map the colors of her party winning in Democratic states.

I personally really enjoyed The Contender. It doesn't have to strike a complete tone of realism (as most thrillers, political or otherwise, rarely do). But it is very well acted, nicely scripted, and it has the balls to actually label its characters by their political party. That's one thing that frustrates me to no end about most movies in which politics enters the equation: we NEVER know what party the politicians or President are from. And I feel as if it's mainly to not piss people off. Lurie doesn't care, because he's making a point about partisan politics. I give him props for that.