Miss Sloane (2016), R, ★★★

Jessica Chastain stating her own mind.

This has been a wild and crazy year for political figures and politics itself in the spotlight. It allowed probably more people in the world than ever to voice their reasons for amendment and laws such as gun laws. People, in particular, who cannot do anything about it because they do not have political experience, advocate for almost anything in particular they believe they are against or for: you have such topics such as gun laws, LGBT community, immigration, taxes, jobs and even higher education. Even though there are one too many subplots to juggle for there could have been a TV show about this project, this is a quippy and entertaining political thriller that focuses more on the solid dialogue and Jessica Chastain's performance than a central screenplay.

Elizabeth Sloane (Jessica Chastain) is a political lobbyist determined to get things right in the government and maybe satisfying the people. She believes that "lobbying is anticipating the opponent's moves and devising countermeasures". We go back seven months earlier as she has a meeting with some older men named George DuPont (Sam Waterston), who is the president of the Gun Lobby and also works at the firm. They are concerned about the Heaton-Harris Amendment which would require employees and maybe the government to perform background checks for customers who want to purchase a firearm. The Gun Lobby president wants Elizabeth to be the face of the bill against background checks but she replies that she is against their request that she wants people who buy a handgun to have background checks.

Elizabeth points out to George that she was hired because she would fight for what she believes in. Later, when she leaves fundraiser event in D.C., a man follows behind and asks to talk to her while they are in the car. The person is revealed to be Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong), the president of Peterson Wyatt. He wants her to lead a fight to pass the bill. She leaves her firm to be a consultant at Peterson Wyatt when she meets Esme (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who is the firm's authority on gun control. The purpose is to appeal to the voters because the Gun Lobby has so much funding behind them.

Well, hello there.

This is a tricky movie to comment as to how it good it is because it has flaws in its screenplay. The title character has a main problem in which somehow when she strives for a succinct and successful campaign, she has solely a one-note personality in which she bosses everyone around and shouts at everybody to do what is necessary. The character lacked some background but Miss Sloane is a very mysterious and interesting character as she is fighting for what she believes in and her attempts to win gets Sloane lost in the shuffle because in the end, it is not a perfect system. It is not sunshines and rainbows. There are boundaries.

John Madden's direction keeps the movie going and being as calculated and entertaining as possible without discussing the political themes at length. It does not strain us with the system in my opinion. Miss Sloane's tactics are imperfect and has not much logic, in terms of the character and the story, but Jessica Chastain's performance gives it all with full throttle and it is powerful. She sells the character. Guru Mbatha-Raw provides heart and soul in this story, Alison Pill provides some courage and John Lithgow develops some smarmy corruption lying in his character to bring Miss Sloane down. It is the performances and some of Tom Madden's direction that delivers entertaining heft in the political story and the message regarding gun laws. Even though there is not much background in the characters or logic in the strategies, the movie delivers on its tone and for its message thanks to some strong performances.

***