Should we blame James Comey?
Thoughts on The Comey Rule
Last night I finished watching The Comey Rule on Showtime. The two-part docudrama was written and directed by Billy Ray. Ray drew mostly from Comey’s memoir “A Higher Loyalty” as the source material for this engaging piece of politics as entertainment.
If you can stream Showtime (there are free preview offers out there) I recommend you watch this. But I have a warning: attempting to play reality will always be artificial, and performances provide more punch than the dialog. This is dialog that should be familiar to any adult who was responsibly aware in the last four years.
I would be nearly impossible to come to watch The Comey Rule without some prejudice about its leading characters. So many of them were portrayed in the news—both during the events depicted and after when their reputations were at the mercy of breaking/broken news. The Comey Rule breathes animating life into supporting characters like Andrew McCabe (Michael Kelly), Sally Yates (Holly Hunter), Rod Rosenstein (Scoot McNairy), Peter Strzok (Steven Pasquale), and Lisa Page (Oona Chaplin). It also provides insight into lesser known players like Jim Baker (Steve Zissis) and Trisha Anderson (Amy Seimetz). Baker and Anderson are two of the voices of conscience of the piece; they send up all of the flares illuminating problems with procedure and ethically questionable, even suicidal career moves perpetrated by the title character.
With the exception of Holly Hunter’s Sally Yates and Scoot McNairy’s Rod Rosenstein, all of the characters above are lead agents at the FBI. They are played as smart, challenging individuals who are fiercely patriotic and loyal to the Bureau. They are also played as deeply loyal to Comey, in spite of their differences with his some of his decisions. Yes, Stzok and Page are revealed to be having an affair. But, as portrayed, that does not diminish their dedication to their jobs.
It would be impossible to approach the lead antagonist in this story with an open mind. He is an omnipresent, festering cancer that has overtaken the United States. Or he is the molotov cocktail that is successfully destroying the corrupt deep state. I guess it all depends upon your perspective, and your willingness to believe the lies he tells so effortlessly.
Brendan Gleeson as Donald Trump does not show up in person until the second part of this two-part story. The halves are divided into pre and post election. Pre-election he is a looming cloud. Post-election he is a chaotic hurricane destroying lives and norms to suit his own gilded ego. Brendan Gleeson does a magnificent job of inhabiting the monstrous oaf that is Trump. At one point Jeff Daniels as Comey is seen meeting Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates during Trump’s American Carnage themed Inauguration. (“That was some weird shit,” opined then-reigning worst president George W. Bush). Daniels’ Comey views Gleeson’s Trump on the television in Yates’ office. He offers his own opinion that Trump reminds him of Sammy “The Bull” Gravano—the renowned mob boss Comey prosecuted as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
As an experienced viewer familiar with many of these actors from other memorable roles, it’s hard to divorce performance history from these roles. Gleeson has been thuggish in performances, so here, it adds to his menace. What is missing from his portrayal, is the shallow ineptitude and hapless incompetence of the man he is playing. Gleeson is an actor who exudes depth and malevolent intent. Trump himself, lacks that kind of gravitas. Trump is an inflated, self-satisfied, ignorant carnival barker, whose primary skills are praising himself and denigrating others. He is a preening, oleaginous bag of orange skin in an ill-fitting suit, whose only motivation is self-satisfaction, especially when it comes at the expense of others.
Trump, the vapid megalomaniac, is actually a more frightening reality than he is played by the excellent Gleeson. With Gleeson, the character only seems more venal. The real one is more dangerous because of his lack of focus and intent. He is pure, self-serving chaos. An indiscriminate enemy is a puzzle that defies understanding; a chaotic evil like Trump is an elusive, and treacherous opponent.
When Gleeson as Trump verbally assaults and manipulates Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein, Priebus, et al. it is a chilling bit of theater. These moments are the meat of The Comey Rule. This Trump’s arrogant, dripping ignorance and mendacity are a vivid indictment of a soulless, evil asshole. (I actually looked for a less vulgar word to end that sentence, but there is none in my vocabulary more apt). Brendan Gleeson makes these moments hurt.
Rod Rosenstein is portrayed as the teller of this tale. The conceit is that much of this story is being relayed to his aide Justin at the Department of Justice. Justin (Dalmar Abuzeid) is a staffer who also worked for Sally Yates. He is the third conscience of the piece. As Rosenstein, Scoot McNairy gives a brilliant, unforgiving performance. He is petty and disingenuous — he resents Comey while admiring him. And he allows himself to be used as a pawn, and then blames the results of his own actions on the man he wronged. It’s a fantastic bit of acting, and a skillful act of character assassination.
If any of this comes as a spoiler, you should do a better job of keeping up with the news.
Of course, the key performance in all of this is Jeff Daniels as James Comey. He is well-cast for the role, but he brings the baggage of his own history of excellence to this performance, just like all the other players. I’ve loved Daniels in roles since Terms of Endearment when he played a shitty husband named Flap to a dying Debra Winger. I loved him in Jonathan Demme’s magnificent Something Wild. (That film defined the brilliance of Melanie Griffith, and introduced one of the greatest evil characters ever committed to film — Ray Liotta as Ray Sinclair). But my favorite Jeff Daniels role is as Will McAvoy in The Newsroom. He oozed intelligence and integrity in that role. It helped shape my preconception of Jeff Daniels in any role.
The contrast for me is that Daniels as Comey is infinitely more likable than Comey as Comey. I believe that Comey is a man of great integrity, but his own presence tarnishes his character. There is righteousness to Comey’s presentation of himself that makes his decisions seem less ethical and more pious. Daniels brings some of that to this performance, but he is still recognizable as a bit of Will McAvoy, and so I am more willing to accept his decisions.
Comey in The Comey Rule is a whipping boy for the outcome of the 2016 election. This is true of—the real Comey.
If we need someone to blame for arrival of a Trump presidency, Comey is an understandable candidate. But we would do better to fault his enablers and sycophants who lie and dissemble to protect their criminal president and their criminal party.
