Bombshell – ★★★✩✩

Certificate – 15
Directed By – Jay Roach
Starring – Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Rob Delaney, Mark Duplass, Malcolm McDowell, Allison Janney.
Running Time – 109 Minutes (1 Hour 49 Minutes)

Bombshell had a brilliant introduction when the teaser trailer was released and had everyone talking and interested in the movie.

Does that interest last when you see the film?

What Is Bombshell About?

The film focuses on the sexual harassment scandal at the most powerful and controversial media empire, Fox News, and the women who brought the infamous man who created it.

Is It Any Good?

The short answer is no and I’ll explain in the next section.

To focus on the good things and it’s the cast. Kidman, Theron and Robbie are brilliant they all bring something different to the film.

The one with the most consistent arc was Robbie’s wide-eyed newcomer Kayla Pospisil. See her as an excited, young conservative with an ambition to then have something awful happening and then losing belief in an organisation she worshipped her life.

Meanwhile, you have a Kidman as Gretchen Carlson is the networks vet who has enough of them and goes out to outsmart everyone in management.

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However, it’s Theron’s transformation into Fox’s former news anchor and top star Megan Kelly and gets everything from looks and voice eerily similar to the real person and could be said to be the standout performance.

Finally, there are great supporting performances from Delaney and McKinnon and Lithgow does a fantastic job of getting you within minutes of hating this evil piece of shit Roger Ailes.

Anything Bad About This Film?

Despite these great performances, even they couldn’t save this film.

The main issue is that I’m not sure if Roach or the writer Charles Randolph knew what tone they were aiming for because in one moment they wanted to be an Adam McKay movie like Vice or The Big Short, especially right at the beginning.

Yet it also wanted to be a comedy or parody, and there were moments I chuckled, but then it quickly turned into a serious drama.

It got the point I was getting annoyed and was simply thinking, “JUST PICK A TONE, PLEASE!”

A female voice in the writing might’ve helped (someone like Long Shot’s Liz Hannah comes to mind), but as the mini-series, The Loudest Voice, which is covering the same subject, is showing is that this should just pick a tone.

Verdict

Great performances couldn’t help a movie where didn’t know how they wanted to handle this serious subject.