Lee Daniels' The Butler

Will Haygood wrote an article in 2008 about Eugene Allen who served as the White House butler for eight presidents which inspired this movie to be made.

Forest Whitaker is a tremendous actor (Last King of Scotland) who seems a bit overwhelmed in playing this role of Cecil Gaines (film name for Eugene Allen)  It feels like he was trying to make a statement (along with Lee Daniels) at the struggles of the African-American in the United States.  Oprah Winfrey was a surprisingly good as Cecil's wife, Gloria.  She portrayed the strength of a mother with the dutifulness of a wife and the humor of a friend.  There were so many stars featured in the previews for this movie that became distracting to the movie waiting for the stars to make their appearance.  It feels like the directors and producers wanted the stars in the movie regardless if they fit the roles or not.  John Cusack is NOT Richard Nixon, Robin Williams looks more like he forgot to change out of his makeup from One Hour Photo than Eisenhower and Alan Rickman is more a caricature of Ronald Reagan than anything else.  In fact all the females in this movie, especially Oprah, Mariah Carey (Cecil's mother), Jane Fonda (Nancy Reagan) and Minka Kelly (Jacqueline Kennedy) are far better than their male counterparts in this movie.

Lee Daniels who exploded in the film-making world when he superbly directed Precious has taken a step back and should re-evaluate the reason he loves to make films.  If it is simply to make a statement, perhaps he should switch to documentaries.

I give this a one thumb up for an interesting story about a previously under-stated member of our American history (Eugene Allen--character Cecil Gaines) but what could have been a great movie was only good.