Nobody is going to mistake cut-rate biopic “Reagan” for a great movie. At best, it’s a pretty standard greatest-hits collection of important moments in the former President’s life. At worst, it’s a laughably underfunded production made by people who, for whatever reason, want to sell America on Ronald Reagan in 2024. But the movie is not always at its worst. It’s a subpar movie that I think some critics are mistaking for a terrible movie.

Reagan’s life story is told by former KGB agent Viktor Petrovich (Jon Voight) as he teaches a young Russian politician about the mistakes the Soviet Union made in underestimating Reagan in the 1980’s. Petrovich understands his enemy so well that he can have flashbacks to Reagan’s childhood, where the takeaway is that his faith got him through family drama. Then he became a lifeguard, where he mostly “saved” women who weren’t really drowning, and really saved others before they knew they were drowning. Petrovich observes that Reagan forever remained a lifeguard.

It’s not long before we get to Reagan as an adult, played by Dennis Quaid. Sadly we don’t see much of his acting career (this movie could have really used a monkey), but we do see him as an increasingly-frustrated commercial pitchman as his career fizzles out. We also see his marriage to Jane Wyman (Mena Suvari) fall apart. But things perk up when he becomes vice-president of the Screen Actors Guild. Not only does he meet his wife Nancy (Penelope Ann Miller) through the position, but he learns that political-type leadership might be his strong suit. After that, it’s the California governorship, a failed run at the Republican Presidential nomination in 1976, and then of course, the Presidency in 1980.

As President, Reagan bravely gets the economy back on track, survives an assassination attempt, and negotiates a near-end to the Cold War. And he does it with all the charisma that a talented actor like Dennis Quaid can bring to the role. There is barely any mention of scandals like Iron-Contra or the controversial War on Drugs or Reagan’s reluctance to address AIDS. Yes, this movie is a pro-Reagan puff piece, one whose goal is almost certainly to get Americans excited about a Republican President just a few months before an election. It’s a pretty transparent political tactic, but I’d rather get positive productions like this instead of the ugly documentaries that accompanied the 2012 and 2016 elections.

The movie doesn’t creep into “memorably, hilariously bad” territory as much as some people are saying. The makeup in most scenes is tolerable, except for one in a hospital bed where the poor makeup is clearly struggling with gravity while Quaid is lying down. At that point, his face might as well be one of those creepy puppets from the Genesis “Land of Confusion” music video. Ill-advised cameos from Pat Boone (as a preacher talking to Reagan, next to Chris Massoglia playing a young Boone) and Creed frontman Scott Stapp (as Frank Sinatra, though I thought it was just some gaudy cover artist until the credits) go by too quickly for them to register. In fact, the same can be said for many historical figures in this movie, they’re in and out before their role in the Reagan’s life or administration is clear.

This brings me to the thing I liked most about “Reagan” – the pacing. It’s not “good” pacing in that I won’t argue with critics who say the movie is too rushed and choppy. But at the same time, I’m grateful for the way that the movie skips briskly along, whether it’s appropriate or not. Reagan led an action-packed life, and an aggrandizing biopic like this could have gone three, maybe four hours. I know this is a cold compliment, but the movie will have to settle for it since I don’t have many other nice things say: I left the theater feeling like I’d gotten off easy.

Grade: C

“Reagan” is rated PG-13 for violent content and smoking. Its running time is 135 minutes.

Robert R. Garver is a graduate of the Cinema Studies program at New York University. His weekly movie reviews have been published since 2006.

3/5 stars

Unveiled out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, Wolfs is a comic thriller that skates along primarily thanks to the laid-back bonhomie of its two stars, George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

These two long-time buddies, who first worked together in Ocean’s Eleven, are back playing rival “cleaners” in this New York-set tale. Both dressed in blacks and greys, uttering the same gnomic phrases, as Austin Abrams’ Kid points out, “You’re, like, basically the same guy.”

Neither Pitt nor Clooney has a name in the film, perhaps because their star power is so enormous we’ll only ever know them as Brad and George.

One chilly night in the Big Apple, Clooney’s fixer is called to a penthouse in a plush hotel by a shaken District Attorney named Margaret (Amy Ryan). In the bedroom is the Kid (Austin Abrams), who she thinks is dead, after he fell and crashed into a drinks trolley. Running a campaign to get tough on crime, the DA knows that if this gets out, it could ruin her.

Then Pitt turns up, it soon emerging he’s been hired by the hotel owner to clean up this mess. With identities compromised, it means that he and Clooney will have to work together, a job that becomes increasingly complicated when a bag of drugs is found and the Kid turns out not to be dead.

As set-ups go, it’s compelling enough, and kicks into gear when Euphoria star Abrams wakes up and makes a bolt for it, in just his underwear, through the freezing cold streets of the city.

You’ll find out next to nothing about the Clooney and Pitt characters, as their shadowy, lone-wolf status dictates. But Watts mines pleasing humour from his veteran A-listers (jokes about fading eyesight), and even includes the Bill Withers classic “Just the two of us” on the soundtrack.

Weighed down by a plot that is entirely secondary – the whole backstory as to why the Kid has a stash of drugs, and who it belongs to, feels almost incidental – Wolfs is the sort of slick, empty-headed entertainment that Hollywood (or in this case Apple) does well enough.

Abrams is charming as the innocent caught up among the high rollers, while Ryan is excellent in her extended cameo. As for Pitt and Clooney, well, they bring the sizzle if not the surprises.

Wolfs will start streaming on Apple TV+ on September 27.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That’s the oath Tonia Haddix swore to uphold in January 2022, when she logged into a Zoom court hearing to deny that she had anything to do with the disappearance of a famous chimpanzee.

During the proceedings, Haddix tearfully recalled how she’d found Tonka — one of seven apes whose care she’d overseen at a former chimp breeding facility in Missouri — dead the previous May. Sitting in front of her laptop at her home near the Lake of the Ozarks, Haddix became so overwhelmed with emotion during her testimony that a judge interrupted her racking sobs and ordered a 10-minute recess for her to compose herself.

Shortly after court came back in session, a verdict was announced.

“It is my belief that Ms. Haddix makes things up,” said Missouri Senior District Judge Catherine D. Perry. “But does that convince me that Tonka is alive and she has hidden him? No, it does not.”

Haddix mumbled her thanks and slammed her screen down. A huge grin spread across her face as she pumped her fists in the air.

“We won, guys. We f— won,” she said, looking around at a film crew who had been shooting the whole thing for the HBO Max docuseries “Chimp Crazy.”

“You won for now, though,” her husband noted.

“Yeah, but we gotta just keep him hidden.”

It’s one of the most astonishing moments in the series — and that’s saying something, considering the documentary, directed by “Tiger King’s” Eric Goode, features a woman describing how she breastfed her chimp. It’s when the audience realizes that Haddix, 54, in fact kidnapped Tonka just before he was about to be relocated from the Missouri facility to an ape sanctuary in Florida. As she lied in court about his supposed death, Haddix was sitting right above Tonka, who she had hidden in a basement cage.

With the third episode premiering Sunday, Haddix’s lies on that Zoom call raised the question: Will she face any legal ramifications for her actions?

After Tonka was eventually located and seized in June 2022, the judge in Haddix’s case with the animal rights group wrote to the assistant U.S. attorney to suggest a criminal investigation into Haddix and her husband, Jerry Aswegan.

The government has yet to prosecute either Haddix or Aswegan, though PETA continues to push for charges. Brittany Peet, the PETA Foundation’s general counsel for captive animal law enforcement, sent a letter to the assistant U.S. attorney about a month before “Chimp Crazy” premiered last month to detail the extent of Haddix’s lies in the series. (Peet is interviewed in the docuseries and had access to early screeners.)

In the letter, Peet said that the nonprofit was told the attorney’s office “has thus far declined to move forward with charges against Haddix because you felt you lacked sufficient evidence to prove that the chimpanzee who was removed from Haddix’s home on June 5, 2022 was actually Tonka.”

Peet proceeds to describe scenes in “Chimp Crazy” that she believes provide “incontrovertible proof” about Tonka’s identity, noting that “it is even more urgent to proceed with charges now that Haddix’s blatant and unrepentant perjury and obstruction is about to be broadcast to a national audience.”

If charged with and convicted of perjury, Haddix could face up to five years in prison, with up to an additional year in prison if charged and convicted with obstructing court orders.

Carrie Costantin, the assistant U.S. attorney to whom the complaints about Haddix were addressed, did not respond to a request for comment from The Times. Haddix, meanwhile, did not answer multiple phone calls and messages seeking an interview.

“Chimp Crazy” depicts Haddix lying about Tonka’s whereabouts during a 2022 virtual court hearing.

(HBO Max)

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PETA would also like the U.S. Department of Agriculture to terminate Haddix’s Animal Welfare Act license. This license allows her to operate her Missouri zoo, Sunrise Beach Safari, where guests can hold sloths, see kangaroos and feed llamas. The permit also enables her to sell exotic animals through her business Primarily Primates, LLC. During her court case with PETA, Haddix declared that she makes approximately $80,000 per year selling creatures like caracal wildcats, Asian small-clawed otters, Egyptian fruit bats and African crested porcupines.

In September 2023, an enforcement official at the Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service — the division of the USDA that administers licenses — said in an email that the agency did not believe Haddix was fit to keep her credential after she “repeatedly provided false information and false statements to a government agency pertaining to the ownership of animals.”

The USDA did not respond to an inquiry regarding the status of Haddix’s license, which expires in September 2025.

After “Tiger King” was released on Netflix in 2020, many of its subjects had their licenses terminated by the USDA. Peet told The Times she’d complained to the organization about big cat owners like Joe Exotic and Jeff Lowe for years, but it was only after “Tiger King” that “it forced their hand because we were able to get international press on animal welfare complaints.”

Joe Exotic in “Tiger King.”

(Courtesy of Netflix)

The final punishment Haddix could face for her involvement with Tonka would come from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. If the bureau determined that her treatment of the chimpanzee violated the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Department of Justice could bring a case against her. If found guilty, Haddix could face up to a year in prison and/or a fine of up to $50,000.

The USFWS did not respond to a request for comment.

Peet said she believes there is strong evidence to suggest Haddix’s behavior breached the law protecting Tonka.

“You’re not allowed to cause an endangered species physical, psychological or veterinary injury,” the lawyer said. “In other cases, judges have found solitary confinement of a social species, failing to provide animals with appropriate enrichment, diet and enclosures — those things violated the Endangered Species Act.”