The Brink

Name: The Brink
Genre: Documentary
Released: March 29, 2019
Duration: 91 min
Rating: 71
Cast: Ari Melber, Dan Jukes, Filip Dewinter, Giorgia Meloni, Kent Ekeroth

2019

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews

See All

USER SCORE

No score yet

tbd

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

tbd	Your Score
tbd	User Score No score yet

Would you like to write a review?

There is a 75 character minimum for reviews. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Please do not use ALL CAPS. There is no linking or other HTML allowed. Your review may be edited for content. 0/5000

Check box if your review contains spoilers

Play Sound

Please enter your birth date to watch this video:

You are not allowed to view this material at this time.

The Brink (Clean Trailer)

Now Playing: The Brink (Clean Trailer)

Movie Details & Credits

Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: March 29, 2019 | Not Rated

Starring: Ari Melber, Dan Jukes, Filip Dewinter, Giorgia Meloni, Kent Ekeroth, Laure Ferrari, Lena Epstein, Louis Aliot, Nigel Farage, Patrick Caddell, Paul Lewis, Raheem Kassam, Sean Bannon, Sharice Davids, Stephen K. Bannon, Steve Cortes, Yasmine Dehaene-Modrikamen

Summary: When Steve Bannon left his position as White House chief strategist less than a week after the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally in August 2017, he was already a notorious figure in Trump’s inner circle, and for bringing a far-right ideology into the highest echelons of American politics. Unconstrained by an official post — thoughWhen Steve Bannon left his position as White House chief strategist less than a week after the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally in August 2017, he was already a notorious figure in Trump’s inner circle, and for bringing a far-right ideology into the highest echelons of American politics. Unconstrained by an official post — though some say he still has a direct line to the White House — he became free to peddle influence as a perceived kingmaker, turning his controversial brand of nationalism into a global movement. The Brink follows Bannon through the 2018 mid-term elections in the United States, shedding light on his efforts to mobilize and unify far-right parties in order to win seats in the May 2019 European Parliamentary elections. To maintain his power and influence, the former Goldman Sachs banker and media investor reinvents himself — as he has many times before — this time as the self-appointed leader of a global populist movement. Keen manipulator of the press and gifted self-promoter, Bannon continues to draw headlines and protests wherever he goes, feeding the powerful myth on which his survival relies.

… Expand

Director: Alison Klayman

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 91 min

See All Details and Credits

Watch Now

Stream On

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Metascore

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

100

Tom Duggins

Jul 12, 2019

The film is a compelling, concerning artefact which shows demagoguery in action, without coming across as heavy-handed. Read full review

Katie Walsh

Apr 4, 2019

Bannon may think he's constantly manipulating the media, but in this film, Klayman uses the tools of documentary filmmaking to reveal his inherent emptiness. Read full review

The Observer (UK) Wendy Ide

Jul 15, 2019

It’s unsavoury viewing – flies on the wall are rarely attracted by the sweet smell of roses after all – but it’s queasily fascinating nonetheless. Read full review

The Playlist Andrew Bundy

Mar 25, 2019

The award-winning filmmaker is a one-woman crew on the project, and Klayman’s tenacious fly on the wall, verité approach illuminates the cynical limitations of Bannon’s cruel human worldview through day-to-day contradictions, far more than an interview-style documentary where such a figure is given a platform to talk in circles ever possibly could. Read full review

David Fear

Mar 29, 2019

The Brink, Alison Klayman’s insightful and often unnerving look at one of the most divisive figures in recent memory, isn’t a particularly fun or easy watch. Read full review

Liam Lacey

Apr 9, 2019

The Brink, director Alison Klayman’s year-long cinema verité portrait of Steve Bannon, is unlikely to change anyone’s mind about Donald Trump’s political strategist, who helped connect the candidate to white nationalists before falling out of favour. Read full review

John DeFore

Feb 1, 2019

This Bannon is a snooze, occasionally making a wry aside but nearly never saying anything unusually smart or new. ... It's hard to see what ordinary viewers at any point on the political spectrum will gain from this particular status report. Read full review

SEE ALL 25 REVIEWS

Write a Review

Negative:

User Reviews

Bertaut1

Aug 3, 2019

A left-leaning film made by a left-leaning filmmaker for a left-leaning audience, which doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know Taking as its subject Steve Bannon, the so-called "Kingmaker" behind Donald Trump's 2016 election victory, Alison Klayman's documentary The BrinkA left-leaning film made by a left-leaning filmmaker for a left-leaning audience, which doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know Taking as its subject Steve Bannon, the so-called "Kingmaker" behind Donald Trump's 2016 election victory, Alison Klayman's documentary The Brink attempts to portray and engage with the controversial alt-right figure without crossing the line into hagiography. Seeing himself as spearheading a global alt-right populist movement (called The Movement), Bannon is a heroic truth-teller to some, a personification of a hateful and racist ideology to others, in whose worldview the only good American is a white Christian heterosexual American. And whilst The Brink is perfectly adequate as a documentary, it's limited by its identity as a left-leaning film made by a left-leaning filmmaker for a left-leaning audience. Very few people on the right will see it, and those that do will find nothing therein to change their minds about him.

The film begins in August 2017, a few weeks after Bannon was fired from the White House in the wake of the Unite the Right rally, and Klayman traces his disastrous endorsement of Roy Moore, the publication of Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, the subsequent break with Trump due to comments in the book, his time in Europe, and his campaigning during the 2018 midterms. She focuses on his European activities, where his aim is to unify and centralise the various right-wing populist groups.

Bannon is at pains throughout the film to stress that neither he nor Trump are racists. In this vein, at a fundraiser early in the film, Bannon states that Trump doesn't care about skin colour, religion, or sexuality, he "cares only that you're a citizen of the United States of America". Seeing the film two days after Trump told three non-Caucasian American-born senators and one non-Caucasian naturalised American senator to "go back where you came from", these words had some considerable unintended irony.

Klayman shoots the film in a cinéma vérité fly-on-the-wall style, letting events play out without really commenting on them (although she does question Bannon directly a couple of times), allowing some of Bannon's more outrageous comments to speak for themselves. For example, at a rally in Hungary, he states that The Movement will be built on "old school Christian democracy rooted in the European tradition" (so plenty of room for Muslims); he asserts that "divine providence is about human action" (unaware of the oxymoron); and in perhaps his most perplexing claim, he refers to China, Iran, and Turkey as the "new Axis".

In terms of challenging Bannon, Klayman's editing is very interesting. For example, she intercuts news reports on Cesar Sayoc and the Tree of Life shooting with Bannon arguing that he's not racist. Later, she intercuts scenes of migrants being attacked in Germany with Bannon's five-star hotel meetings with right-wing politicians. In another scene, when he insists that he would never take any non-American money, she cuts to him meeting Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui. Most powerfully, after the disastrous 2018 midterms, over scenes of Bannon trying to figure out what went wrong, Klayman plays an audio montage of newly-elected Democrat women condemning the kind of hatred upon which he thrives.

For all that, however, the film has significant flaws. Most egregiously, Klayman assumes her audience is in total agreement with her – that Bannon is a dangerous purveyor of hatred and prejudice. Because of this, the documentary remains all surface; she doesn't offer a deep dive into his psychology because why would she when the audience already thinks like her? In this sense, it's hard to know what anyone will glean from the film; the very few on the right who see it, will read it as more evidence of a left-leaning elitist media determined to crush the right; those on the left will simply have their opinions reaffirmed.

With this in mind, it's hard to pinpoint what Klayman accomplishes with the film – it doesn't tell us anything about Bannon we didn't already know and it doesn't reveal much about his thought processes or private ideology. In the same sense, it isn't going to change anyone's way of thinking. So what was the point? Why give such a hateful and dangerous individual so much attention when you don't have anything in mind other than having your audience agree with you? At best, the film suggests that he's a good example of the banality of evil – Klayman is trying to demystify him, painting him as a slick used car salesman, successfully selling cars he knows are defective. But really, did he actually need demystifying?

The Brink is a perfectly watchable film, but so too is it perfectly forgettable, which, given the subject and the extraordinary access, is hugely disappointing. Indeed, as it ended, the only thought I had in my head was "Bannon would have loved that". Which is not exactly a good thing.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

SEE ALL 1 REVIEWS