Remember that infamous meeting between James Comey and Donald Trump, early on in his administration, in which Trump flat-out asked Comey to "pledge his loyalty" to him? I know, it seems like a lifetime ago, in this presidency seemingly plagued by a new scandal every week- if not nearly every day at this point- but that was undeniably one of the first big ones. With that revelation, what was already readily apparent to those in the know became public knowledge: America had just picked a wanna-be gangster to lead the country.
Now, imagine if Trump had asked everyone in America to pledge their loyalty to him by signing an "oath." Signing it wasn't a requirement- this is still the "land of the free," after all- but if you DIDN'T sign it, you better believe it was duly noted, and you were immediately put on a "list." A list that marked you as someone Trump's government might need to "keep an eye on" and perhaps even question to your face, should you go the extra mile and do something...unsavory, shall we say?
That, in a nutshell, is the basic premise of The Oath, a timely, highly political black comedy film that marks the directorial debut of comedic actor Ike Barinholtz, of TV's The Mindy Project, Blockers and the Neighbors series. Barinholtz also wrote, produced and stars in the film, which features fellow comedic actor, Tiffany Haddish, of Girls Trip and Keanu fame, as his character's long-suffering wife. To his credit, Barinholtz makes his uber-liberal character a bit of a dick, so that, while it's plainly obvious where he stands politically, it doesn't necessarily make him in the right all of the time, either.
The set up is this: one day, right around Thanksgiving, the current administration- the President himself is never named- announces that it will be issuing a voluntary "oath" to be signed by every American that wishes to do so that simply affirms one's commitment to one's country. Everyone has a good year and some change to mull it over, but the deadline is Black Friday, slightly over a year from when the movie begins. There will be no repercussions for not signing, it is said, but that is soon proved to not necessarily be the case when certain conscientious objectors (including actor Seth Rogen!) seem to have fallen off the Earth when they refused to sign it.
Perhaps needless to say, these troubling disappearances lead a lot of people that would have ordinarily objected to such a thing to sign it, primarily out of self-preservation, whether of themselves or their families. Not so Chris (Barinholtz) and his wife Kai (Haddish), who hold firm to their beliefs, in spite of the possible effects it may have on their family.
Said family includes daughter Hardy (Priah Ferguson, aka Erica of Stranger Things); Chris' brother, Pat (Barinholtz' real brother, Jon, of Superstore); sister Alice (Carrie Brownstein, of alt-rockers Sleater-Kinney and Portlandia fame) and his parents, mother Eleanor (former SNL cast-member Nora Dunn) and father Hank (Chris Ellis, Transformers, Armageddon), all of whom are staying over at his house for Thanksgiving.
Also along for the ride are Alice's husband, Clark (Jay Duplass, also of The Mindy Project), who is deathly ill and spends most of the film sick in bed, at least until one key moment late in the movie; and Pat's latest girlfriend, Abbie (Meredith Hagner, TV's Search Party, Younger)- or is that Katie?- who is on the conservative side and has dragged the formerly rebellious Pat along that path with her, much to Chris' chagrin.
Despite mother Eleanor's best efforts to keep politics out of the conversation, in an attempt to keep things civil for Thanksgiving, they bubble up anyway, especially as word gets out that the President is responsible for the military gunning down some protestors who object to signing the oath. Horrified, Chris voices his own objections, only to find out that most everyone at the table has signed the oath. Things quickly go downhill from there, and eventually Chris sulks off to his room, Thanksgiving officially having fallen apart.
The next day, on Black Friday, it's the deadline, and there comes a knock on the door. It's two members of the so-called CPU, a governmental agency sent to investigate anyone who hasn't signed the oath, especially if they're reported as being trouble-makers. It seems that someone in the house has done just that, which, as you might guess, causes Chris to turn on his family even further.
This, in turn, leads to a confrontational showdown with the agents, the antagonistic Mason (Billy Magnussen, TV's Get Shorty, Maniac), and the more reasonable Peter (John Cho, of the Star Trek and Harold & Kumar franchises), during which things go decidedly off the rails. Will Chris be able to emerge relatively unscathed, or will he have to resort to more violent means? You can probably guess the answer from his disheveled appearance on most of the film's posters, as seen above.
The Oath definitely walks a fine line between scarily believable to completely over-the-top, and that oddball tone may not sit well with some expecting a more light-hearted comedy, given the presence of the normally genial Haddish. Light-hearted, this is not. What it is, is a bit heavy-handed at times, but given the times we're living in at the moment, also not completely out of the realm of possibility, either. Indeed, as many of you might know, as I write this, civilian protesters in China are indeed at war with their own government, and a lot of that has to do with civil rights.
Meanwhile, in addition to the above incident I cited at the beginning of the article, the whole "oath" thing isn't as far-fetched as it might seem to some. Indeed, there are two particular historical incidents that serve as some precedent to what happens in this movie. In 1947, President Truman signed an executive order that made government employees swear that they were not involved in any "subversive" groups (a la the Communist Party) or engaged in anything "unseemly," i.e. homosexuality. (He did have his good points, as seen above and just below.)
Then, again, in 1950, the Levering Act, required state employees in California, of all places, to sign an oath that they were not communists or members of any subversive group. Those who didn't were fired- though, in time, and after years of legal wrangling, most of them got their jobs back after the oath was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It's sort of ironic that our current President, who is also big on loyalty pledges, is an acknowledged supporter of Putin and his Communist regime, leading some of his supporters to wear shirts that proudly proclaim: "Better Communist than Democrat."
I imagine Truman and Reagan alike would turn over in their graves to see what the Republican Party has become since their day. Whatever happened to the so-called "Evil Empire"? It's hard to reconcile all this bending over backwards by the Republicans as of late to disavow Russian's proven meddling in our elections with the reality of the situation. I'm sure Putin is laughing all the way to the bank, as he uses us to launder all his dirty money.
That said, one thing I really liked about The Oath is that it doesn't shy away from painting Chris as a total asshole, who claims to be all high and mighty and the voice of reason, but is actually the most unreasonable of all the characters in the movie. It's not that he's wrong about certain things, it's that he can't resist taking things too far, much as many liberals do IRL, such as when he labels his own brother a racist, simply because he's not a fan of comedian Chris Rock.
It's precisely this sort of high-and-mighty, snap judgment declarations that make conservatives hate most liberals, and I can't say I blame them. Truth be told, I'm about as sick of all the SJW morons out there as I am of all the fascist-leaning idiots on the right. Whatever happened to meeting someone in the middle? And therein lies the problem- there is no "middle" anymore. And that includes the middle class, which have all but died out, thanks to all the rich hoarding their wealth- "trickle down economy," my ass.
No doubt about it, we live in a divided country, and The Oath is one of those movies we'll show to people on down the line, when we're asked what it was like to live through what we're living through at the moment. Yes, it's obviously over the top- it's a movie, after all- but it's also not too far from the truth, either. Oftentimes movies are just heightened versions of reality, anyway, and this film is no exception. It's basically the political black comedy equivalent of one of those home invasion horror flicks, a la The Purge or Funny Games.
That said, The Oath isn't particularly funny, per se, which isn't to say it's bad, just a comedy that lands more on the dark end of the genre than the lighter side. If anything, I can see where conservatives and liberals alike would see a lot of this as no laughing matter, but rather, as a perfect representation of what's wrong with America at the moment. Ironically, the problem is, to quote our highly divisive President, on "both sides," as it were.
Thankfully, I dodged a bullet at my family's recent Thanksgiving celebration, as the known rabble-rousers on the MAGA end weren't even invited, in an effort to nip things in the bud before they even began. Such was not the case last year, which I thankfully missed, but with the patriarch of the family ill, and it being his house the festivities are traditionally thrown in, who can blame him for wanting to avoid that sort of clashing?
Apparently, last year, one of said offenders proudly hung an autographed photo of Trump on the facade of the house for everyone to see when they arrived- of a house that wasn't even his, mind you- in an effort to get the "snowflakes" riled up. My mom said he was lucky she didn't have a dart to throw at it, lol. 😂 Gotta love mom. Anyway, it did the trick, and sure enough, arguments abounded all around. Not so this year, thank God.
Now, one could say that maybe us liberals shouldn't have such thin skin and take the bait, and they're absolutely right, but that doesn't excuse someone deliberately provoking them, either. I think it's high time both sides stop "poking the bear," as it were, and that includes, as shown in the movie, so readily calling everyone that supports Trump a "Nazi." I mean, I don't get it, to be sure, but is everyone that supports Trump really a racist, sexist, xenophobic scumbag?
Okay, a lot of them probably are at this point, what with the impeachment hearings having finally shaved off what few sensible people were still wholeheartedly supporting the (not my) President. But, given how much in the bubble a lot of people are- once again, on "both sides"- even there, it's kind of understandable to a point. After all, if you get all your information from a prejudiced source, you're going to be subject to a LOT of misinformation. (Looking at you, FOX.)
It reminds me of an interview I saw with an older woman who was legitimately surprised at a Town Hall meeting to see that so many people thought Trump was a criminal that lied and committed bribery. It was at that point I realized, if you get all your info from a flawed source, then of course you'd be surprised by that. In other words, it's not that some of these people are bad, they're just misinformed. Of course, a lot of them would probably say that I'm the one that's misinformed, but yeah, getting kind of hard to make that argument anymore.
So, to that end, The Oath kind of serves as a cautionary tale. As in: you think things are bad now? Well, look at how much worse they COULD be. Hopefully, it won't come to the likes of what we see here, but you never know. That's why it's up to us to find some common ground, where we can all meet in the middle, as much of an uphill battle as that may seem. I get how hard it can be to do that, but we have to try, or else all may be lost, and I can't imagine anyone, liberal or conservative, wants that.
Besides, Mother Earth may take care of that all on her own. That's what happens when we take our eye off the ball of what we should really be focusing on. Politics seem like a trifle when it comes to our very environment self-destructing, much less when we could have done something about it- to say nothing of us being the cause in the first place.
The Oath isn't a perfect movie, by any means. Like I said, it often is its own worst enemy- much like the current President- in that, even when he has some good points, the main character is often insufferable. At the same time, some of the other characters are often idiotic as well, or have their heads completely in the sand. The movie is too real to be truly funny, and to over-the-top to be completely believable.
As such, it may divide viewers on both party lines. But that seems about right at this point in time, doesn't it? Until we can rectify and resolve our differences, The Oath is as good as a portrait of the State of our dis-Union as any film I've seen lately.
I say check it out, but tread carefully, depending on what side of the fence you're on- or who you watch it with- you might just find that the problem isn't with the other side, but your own.
Black Friday, indeed... 😜😱
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