The Art of the Deal: The Movie
Funny or Die
If you haven’t trawled through the internet in the last two days then you missed the news that Funny or Die released a fake mockumentary of Donald Trump from the eighties, entitled “The Art of the Deal: The Movie,” based on his very real book of the same name. Shot in fake home video glory the film stars Johnny Depp in complete prosthetics as the Don. There are many supporting players, some of them real people like Ivanka Trump (played by Michaela Watkins) and there’s a singular kid (kind of) who is relayed much of Trump’s know-how.
Depp’s prosthetics in this year’s “Black Mass” were left wanting, but they work here in his absurd turn as candidate Trump. He’s brash, chauvinistic, racist, sexist, and problematic all at once, much like the actual Trump. While it’s difficult to parody a man who is already a walking buffoon, FOD does an amazing job with what they have. Though Depp has taken dramatic missteps in recent years, (“Mortdecai”, “Black Mass”, “The Lone Ranger” etc.) he shines in this comedic turn. The side characters are all played by people like Patton Oswalt, Alfred Molina, and Jack McBrayer. The gags are great, the jokes themselves are well crafted and yet gross, and the entire thing feels like a trippy, strange odyssey through Trump’s fantastical brain (under all that hair).
The best scenes make almost no sense. There is a scene where Trump does a deal in a bar and talks about his sexual bravado in a cartoonish fashion. The best scene of the film is in the strange ending which showcases Christopher Lloyd in yet another cameo as Doc Brown, a birthday cake, body switching, and a 2016 Donald Trump showing up to proclaim the future. Better yet, a lot of this film is based off of the real Trump, including his wish to buy the Taj Mahal casino from Merv Griffin, his former registration as a democrat, and much of the dialogue is taken from his real life comments. Just for the absurdity element alone you should watch this short fifty-minute film.
