Anti-Trump celebrity (is that redundant?) Rob Reiner’s film Shock and Awe hit theaters on Friday, and if you didn’t notice, neither did anybody else. (RELATED: Roseanne Barr Defends Trump, Fights Rob Reiner Over ‘Russian BS’).
Packed with a celebrity cast including Reiner himself, Woody Harrelson, James Marsden, Jessica Biel, and Tommy Lee Jones, the film told the story of a group of journalists that investigate the “true story” behind why the Bush Administration invaded Iraq in 2003.
“We don’t write for people who send other people’s kids to war. We write for people whose kids get sent to war,” Reiner’s character says in the film, so you can guess the film takes the stance that the Bush administration misled. According to film review site Rotten Tomatoes, “the film is based on the true events of Knight Ridder journalists who were the only ones who ‘got it right’ in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War when they questioned the true nature of the Bush White House’s justification for the conflict.”
The *real* Reiner said he was motivated to make the film because of the Trump presidency. In an interview with NPR, Reiner told the interviewer “If the government says something, is it true? And right now, we’re facing probably the greatest test of the fourth estate, you know, in my lifetime certainly, when you have good journalists that are working very hard to get to the truth. And they’re coming up against headwinds of an alternative truth which is put out by another set of journalists. And so we’re now debating what’s true and what’s not true.”
And just about nobody went out and saw it.
According to the Daily Caller, the film grossed an abysmal $41,000 over the weekend. Put differently, the film grossed only $410 per theater it was played in, or fewer than 30 people per theater if we assume a price of $14 per ticket.
Rob Reiner’s Iraq War movie SHOCK AND AWE earned $41,000 this weekend. Not a misprint. https://t.co/RmQj0logrA
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) July 15, 2018
https://twitter.com/KDbyProxy/status/1018608878764904448
While only 1.9 percent of the approved film critics on the popular movie review website Rotton Tomatoes identify as conservative (compared to 64% liberal), the reviews of Shock and Awe were still overwhelmingly negative on the site.
One critic described the film as “well-intentioned but clumsy.” Another was less charitable; “…unremittingly boring…Considering the fact that Reiner has been a talented director and that Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, and James Marsden are competent actors, I never dreamed it could be so bad.”
Luckily for the majority of the American public, they’ll never have to see how bad it is for themselves.
Apparently, most Americans have no interest in watching a movie directed by an anti-Bush celebrity, proving once again that Hollywood is out-of-touch with everyday people.
