Any movie written by Gore Vidal, based on a play by Gore Vidal, is bound to project a rather jaundiced (the late polemicist would no doubt prefer “skeptical”) view of the American political scene. Luckily, Vidal’s sardonic intellect and the talents of the principal actors here — Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson and Lee Tracy, nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of a wily ex-President — combine to keep the movie from devolving into a celluloid screed. In fact, considering how ruthless the film is in dissecting the amoral machinations employed in virtually any national political endeavor — in this case, a Presidential campaign, with Fonda and Robertson vying for their unnamed party’s nomination — The Best Man is remarkable not for its scorn or its misanthropy, but for the even-handedness of its vision. Neither candidate is a paragon, and neither is a beast: a view that, in today’s profoundly partisan climate, feels almost quaint.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_u3pxWNLxc]