You know a political drama has problems when the most suspenseful part is watching a moderator shuffle his cue cards like he’s playing poker with regret. The Last Debate (2000), directed by a John Badham who appears to have confused “urgent political drama” with “PowerPoint presentation on ethics,” is a made-for-TV movie so dry, you’ll be begging for a filibuster just to liven things up.
It’s based on a novel by Jim Lehrer — yes, that Jim Lehrer, of PBS NewsHour fame — which explains a lot. This is the kind of film where people don’t speak, they pontificate. Where the stakes are supposedly high, but the pacing suggests everyone’s on Ambien. Imagine if 12 Angry Men had no tension, no anger, and eight of the jurors were just wallpaper in sport coats. That’s The Last Debate.
The Premise: Gotcha Questions and Moral Dilemmas
Here’s the basic setup: It’s the eve of a U.S. presidential election, and a major televised debate is about to take place between the two candidates — the slick, polished Republican nominee Jack “Moral Majority” Armstrong (played by James Pickens Jr.), and the Democratic hopeful — who barely registers as a character because the movie is too busy licking its own ethical bootheels.
Four journalists are chosen to moderate the debate. Not just moderate, but question, grill, expose. They’re granted rare access, carte blanche to challenge the candidates, with a particular eye on Armstrong — who may or may not have a dark past involving war crimes, fascist tendencies, or something else the script flirts with and then drops like a hot potato because it might make the plot interesting.
Naturally, instead of delivering fireworks, the journalists gather in a hotel suite for an extended pre-debate discussion about whether they should go hard at Armstrong. Not whether the allegations are true. Not how to present them. But whether doing so would be, you know… rude.
This goes on for most of the movie. Think All the President’s Men if the President was never mentioned and the men were too polite to use adjectives.
The Characters: Four Talking Haircuts and a Candidate You Don’t Care About
There are four journalists, and not one of them seems like they’ve actually ever asked a tough question in their lives. You’ve got the idealist, the pragmatist, the old guy who remembers when newspapers mattered, and the token woman who exists solely to ask, “But what about ethics?”
Peter Gallagher plays David Sawyer, the de facto lead moderator and man with the world’s most expressive eyebrows. Gallagher does his best to inject gravitas into a script that mostly requires him to sit, frown thoughtfully, and occasionally say things like “Is this our job? Or are we playing God?”
The other three journalists are filled out by familiar TV faces who, despite having mouths and presumably resumes, never manage to register more than “Guy #2 with a conscience” and “Lady who once wrote a think piece.”
As for Jack Armstrong, the candidate at the center of this dull moral hurricane, he gets maybe ten minutes of screen time. He’s affable, slippery, and entirely unmemorable — like someone programmed an AI to simulate “charismatic evil” but forgot to add RAM.
The Direction: Badham, Lost in the Wilderness of Beige
John Badham has directed action classics (Blue Thunder, WarGames) and even made disco look dangerous (Saturday Night Fever). Here, however, he seems to be directing from a hotel bar napkin. The entire film looks like it was shot in one Marriott suite using only desk lamps and leftover CNN graphics packages from 1996.
The visual style is about as dynamic as a DMV line. Every shot is composed like a dull sermon: people sitting in chairs, talking in monotones, occasionally pausing to sip coffee and furrow their brows. There are cutaways to news footage, yes, but it’s mostly just an excuse to break up the tedium — like someone tossed in a screensaver between monologues.
Even the titular debate — the movie’s climactic moment — is a non-event. No fireworks. No breakthroughs. Just the same chin-stroking debate about whether it’s journalistically responsible to upset a man who’s possibly a sociopathic warmonger because he wore a nice tie and said “freedom” a lot.
The Themes: Big Questions, Tiny Brains
The Last Debate wants to be a serious film about media responsibility, about the erosion of hard-hitting journalism in the face of political power. It wants to ask: Should the press influence elections? Should the fourth estate go for the jugular when the country is watching? Is it noble to stay neutral, or is that just cowardice in a blazer?
All noble questions. Unfortunately, the movie handles them with the nuance of a freshman ethics seminar taught by a guy who once watched The West Wing and thought it was a documentary.
Every argument is presented, then immediately second-guessed. Characters waffle, whine, and walk in narrative circles. The result is not tension — it’s intellectual fatigue. You’re not contemplating journalistic integrity; you’re screaming at the screen, “Just ask the damn question already!”
The Dialogue: C-SPAN With the Snark Removed
Sample line:
“We are the last firewall between truth and power. But maybe… maybe we are the power.”
That’s the kind of faux-weighty line you’ll be subjected to, delivered in hushed tones by actors who look like they’re wondering if this gig counts toward their pension. The entire movie is written like it was ghostwritten by a thesaurus — every line stuffed with big words and little meaning.
You know how in a good political drama, people talk fast and sharp and leave you breathless? This is the opposite. This is the kind of movie where someone asks a question, and you have time to do your taxes before the answer arrives.
The Ending: A Whimper in a Blazer
Eventually — mercifully — the debate happens. The journalists don’t reveal anything new. The audience doesn’t care. The candidate doesn’t flinch. And the movie ends with the press pack wandering off, questioning whether they did the right thing, or any thing at all.
There’s no catharsis. No revelations. Just a beige fade-out that screams, “We ran out of time and also the craft services budget.”
Final Verdict: 1.5 out of 5 Televised Yawns
The Last Debate could’ve been a timely, sharp political gut-punch. Instead, it’s a 90-minute ethics debate hosted by mannequins in Brooks Brothers suits. John Badham’s direction is flatter than a hotel pancake, the dialogue is academic navel-gazing, and the supposed suspense is about as urgent as a parking ticket in a thunderstorm.
Watch it only if you’re writing a thesis on media self-flagellation or trapped in a hotel room with no remote. Otherwise, skip the debate. You won’t miss a damn thing.
