Rolling Stone - USA (2019-07)

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+++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +Poor July 2019 | Rolling Stone | 91


LICENSE TO AILES


The Loudest Voice charts Fox News CEO Roger Ailes’ rise and
fall — and exists mainly to win Russell Crowe an Emmy

C


REDIT WHERE
credit is due: The
Loudest Voice,
Showtime’s seven-part
miniseries about the rise
and fall of Fox News chair-
man and alleged chronic
sexual harasser Roger
Ailes, is dedicated to living
up to its name. From
the moment that Russell
Crowe’s jowly, handsy ver-
sion of the political consul-
tant-turned-conservative
kingmaker shows up in a
diner, predicting how his
epitaph will read — “right-
wing, paranoid, fat” — you
have the distinct feeling
you are being yelled at.
And not just by the Oscar-
winning actor, though
he does unleash hell via
a variety of high-volume
bellows, blowups, scream-
ing temper tantrums and
a tyrannical 4 a.m. “pep
talk” to his troops. It feels
like this adaptation of
Gabriel Sherman’s 2014
book is constantly inches
away from your face, wav-
ing its finger as spittle flies
from its frothing mouth.
It’s a deafening screed
of a series. That doesn’t,
however, mean it’s an
insightful one.
Like Citizen Kane, this
biodrama starts with its
main character’s death;

NEW


THIS


MONTH
Thanks to the
streaming era,
summer is no
longer dead for
TV. Here, four
shows we can’t
wait to see

PREVIEW

STRANGER THINGS
Netflix, July 4th
For Season Three, the Duffer
brothers’ love letter to Eighties
horror shifts the action from
Halloween to Independence Day,
a move that could give the entire
series a welcome jolt.

VERONICA MARS
Hulu, July 26th
Kristen Bell reprises the role that
made her a star — and by all
accounts, the new series will
steer back into the film-noir mode
that worked so well back in the
UPN days. Enjoy, marshmallows!

PENNYWORTH
Epix, July 28th
Curious what Alfred Pennyworth
did before becoming Batman’s
butler? This show follows Young
Alfred (Jack Bannon) during
his days as a British soldier and
security-company founder.

FOUR WEDDINGS
AND A FUNERAL
Hulu, July 31st
Rom-com fanatic Mindy Kaling
and Mindy Project co-creator
Matt Warburton craft a miniseries
inspired by a giant of the genre,
the 1994 Hugh Grant classic.

the sound of pundits
chattering away in the
background is its equiv-
alent of a Rosebud. We
flash back to 1995, when
Ailes was dismissed from
CNBC regarding a Human
Resources investigation.
(This is called foreshad-
owing.) Luckily, this frees

the media macher to give
Rupert Murdoch (theater
legend Simon McBurney,
all reptilian watchfulness)
a 24-hour infotainment
channel to rival CNN. But
Ailes refuses to do just
another “Clinton News
Network.” He wants to
give conservatives their

own platform and the
public a constant stream
of fear and loathing.
“People don’t want to
be informed,” he says.
“People want to feel
informed.”
The Loudest Voice fol-
lows Ailes as he assembles
a murderer’s row of talent
and behind-the-scenes
players, including PR
exec/henchman Brian
Lewis (Family Guy’s Seth
MacFarlane) and a shock
jock named Sean Hannity
(Patch Darragh). He brings
on Laurie Luhn (Anna-
belle Wallis) as a booker
before coercing and then
blackmailing her into
performing sexual favors;
soon, she’s a walking,
PTSD-stricken embod-
iment of how this man
turned everything into a
power play. It highlights
his vulgarity (“Who or-
dered the pussy masala?”
he snickers after interview-
ing a female Indian candi-
date) and extreme para-
noia. It shows us how his
wife, Beth (Sienna Miller),
matched his Machiavellian
streak, if not his appetites.
And it demonstrates how,
after 9/11, Ailes began to
beat the war drums louder
for Bush II. He also takes
on a more populist bent.
It starts with an insis-
tence that a presidential
candidate be referred to as
“Barack Hussein Obama.”
It peaks when a certain re-
ality-TV celebrity starts to
appear more regularly on
the walls of TV monitors.

The Loudest
Voice
NETWORK Showtime
AIR DATE June 30th,
10 p.m.
STARRING Russell Crowe
Naomi Watts
Seth MacFarlane
Sienna Miller
@

By the time Ailes’ bête
noire shows up in the
form of Gretchen Carlson
(Naomi Watts at her most
brittle), we’ve already
been battered by a lot of
amped-up bad behavior
and obvious signposts
regarding the decline of
civilized discourse. In
the spirit of its subject,
subtlety is not on the
menu. It’s all frontal
assault. If The Loudest
Voice can’t impress you,
it will damn well steamroll
you into submission.
The problem, aside
from the pleasure of
watching celebrities
impersonate famous
Fox personalities, is
that there’s not a lot
of takeaway past the
car-wreck fascination of
witnessing one horri-
ble man ruin lives and
livelihoods. It’s a lot of
sound and fury signifying
one thing only, glazed
with a tabloid patina of
power, corruption and
perversity. Better to view
this as a star vehicle for
Crowe, who digs into
this grotesque role with
gusto. No amount of
fat-suit prosthetics can
keep him from reaching
phone-throwing levels of
rage and channeling top-
shelf rancor. If the idea
is to glean lessons and
drama from Ailes’ story,
The Loudest Voice is a bust.
If the idea is to win Crowe
an Emmy, however, you
can call this a fair and bal-
anced success. DAVID FEAR

Above:
Crowe and
McBurney
launch a
network.
Right: Naomi
Watts as
Gretchen
Carlson.

Bannon
earns a medal.

Millie
Bobby
Brown and
the gang

Bell’s
on the
case.

Rebecca
Rittenhouse,
Nathalie
Emmanuel
Free download pdf