DVD Review - Miss Sloane

Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life and Zero Dark Thirty) stars as Madeleine Elizabeth Sloane, a lobbyist in Washington, DC who leaves her firm in a more cocky version of Jerry Maguire's exit and she goes to work on a campaign to get a gun control law passed. The law is called the Heaton-Harris Bill. What she needs is to convince enough members of the U.S. Senate to vote for the bill. Thus, a war of public opinion and persuasion is unleashed and things get brutal and intense.

Written by Jonathan Perera, the whole thing plays as an Aaron Sorkin knock-off. It's perhaps not as smart as an actual Sorkin script, but it thinks it is. There is a scene here with Christine Baranski who has been Emmy-nominated for her role in The Good Wife, a show about politics that is vastly smarter than this. This movie certainly isn't as smart as other, popular, political TV series like Scandal and House of Cards.

Madeleine is propped up to be an Olivia Pope or Frank Underwood type. The problem is Madeleine isn't connected to the White House. Therefore, her work never feels as compelling or as exciting as an episode of Scandal or House of Cards.

There was a whole story line about her hooking up with a prostitute, a male gigolo named Forde, played by Jake Lacy (Carol and How To Be Single). It was just stupid. It shows how stupid this thing is. Madeleine would know better.

Rated R for language and some sexuality.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 12 mins.