Sherry Stuckey Woody Harrelson executes the role perfectly leaving the viewer wondering if LBJ is a man with a good heart, or a good political agenda, or both.

Kris LBJ in many ways parallels Robert Caro's book 'The Passage of Power' which tells the story of Lyndon Johnson at the tail end of his days as Senate Majority Leader, Vice-President and President up until August 1964 with the passing of the Civil Rights Act. Those interested in this story would be well-advised to read the book before watching this movie but even for those who don't, the film is about as historically accurate as you can get for a two hour effort. Many of the quotes in the script are true to words actually spoken by Johnson at one point or another in his career and the scenes between the Kennedys and Johnson are not far off the mark either with my only gripe being that Johnson's speech on civil rights given at Gettysburg in May 1963 was omitted from the film but one that was given a week before JFK's landmark speech on the same topic. My impression of the film is that overall it was done as well as could be without straining to bore an audience, and a select audience at that, who would watch this movie however I still believe that Bryan Cranston gave the best performance of LBJ in All The Way and that the over-reliance on makeup and prosthetics on Harrelson and even Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lady Bird Johnson was somewhat a distraction. Indeed I'd say Reiner made Harrelson look like LBJ would've by 1968 after the weight of the office and the war in Vietnam had taken its toll rather the way he appeared in the early 1960s but these are minor quibbles. In the last analysis movies like this will never measure up entirely to the written material out there that provides far more context and understanding of the events described. For example Johnson's reluctance to submit a civil rights bills in late 1963 to Congress along with other measures Kennedy had sent up was rooted in the fact that LBJ knew that every other bill would be either stalled or killed along with civil rights legislation which he would insist be the only thing on the congressional agenda. This explains why in January 1964 he made it a priority to get JFK's tax cuts passed before he would put the full weight of the effort into a civil rights bill. Fundamentally he understood legislative strategy but JFK would never use Johnson in that way because he instinctively knew that by delegating the legislative agenda to Johnson he would be giving him a power centre that would make Kennedy reliant on his vice-president to get anything done and that was something no sitting president could abide by. Still its good to see LBJ getting his proper due for his achievements that overshadowed anything JFK did and may never have done had he lived. Much changed on November 22, 1963, some for the worse but also much for the better.

cgent47-495-695824 This was a good movie about a despicable president. His legacy is the 58,220 soldiers killed in Vietnam. The civil rights act of 1964 was passed by the majority of Republicans voting for it.

st-shot Lyndon Johnson gets a very sympathetic (while RFK does not) look from the most unlikely of defenders in liberal film maker Bob Reiner's LBJ. The grossly misleading title about this larger than life character however covers little of his career, deciding instead to zero in on the period around JFKs assassination, Johnson's ascendancy to the Presidency and passage of The Civil Rights Bill. It offers an interesting look at power play at the highest levels as Johnson intimidated to begin with by all the Harvard intelligentsia in the cabinet attempts to establish himself. Woody Harrellson's LBJ passably captures the crassness and incertitude but fails to deliver the man in full that as Senate Majority leader bullied and cajoled members into line. There are flashes of the famed abrasiveness but they are far out weighed with a pouting, insecure LBJ huddling with Lady Bird. Anyone familiar with this man's public career know the material Reiner had in his arsenal to make an outstanding character study. Instead he only gives us a chapter of an incredibly controversial career when we are expecting a book. LBJ shortchanges.