The Reagan movie (2024) is a bioflick about one of America’s greatest presidents, Ronald Reagan. Reagan was a legend during his lifetime, and the legend has arguably grown since his passing. Can a movie do him justice? The story is told through the eyes of a KGB agent (played by Jon Voight) assigned to follow and study the career of the American actor, who became governor, who became President of the United States. The film explores Reagan’s life though childhood, his career as an actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild, Governor of California, and his presidency.

Critics predicably panned it. There’s no way that they’re going to support a movie that paints a Republican, especially Reagan, in a good light. Audiences love it. As for the story, it treats its subject fairly, not glossing over his faults nor unrealistically portraying his successes. It is historically accurate, excepting for the plot devise that creates a character, a KGB agent, as the movies vehicle to tell the story.

The movies only real problem is in telling a story so big, what to cut out and what to leave in? The move does well to get in all the absolute essentials, such as: Leading the Screen Actors Guild, key speeches, his failed attempt at the presidency in 1976, his election, the assassination attempt, his meetings with Soviet leaders, the Iran-Contra affair. Some events that were glossed over or left out were the US invasion of Grenada and his attack on Libya, and his speech following the Challenger shuttle disaster.

The acting is good, though it does take a little imagination at first to see Ronald Reagan and not Dennis Quaid, though Quaid accurately reproduces Reagan’s speaking and mannerisms. The sets and costumes are accurate, and actual footage is integrated into the film in spots for added realism.

All in all, Reagan is a good movie. It’s worth watching on the big screen. Critics will complain about not concentrating on the Iran-Contra affair. Conservatives and the less political will find it an interesting and historically accurate story about a one of the more influential public figures of the second half of the 20th Century.