Former critic Rod Lurie’s The Contender plays like two very different movies awkwardly grafted together. Most of the film is an intimate look at the creepy process of assigning lofty offices (in this case, the vice-presidency). It’s as if the audience is allowed to catch the moments of the Watergate and Abscam scandals when there were no microphones in the room. The conclusion, however, panders to viewers like a fawning politician. By aiming so hard to please, Lurie winds up alienating the crowd instead.

Bismarck once said that there were two things a person is better off not knowing: how sausages and laws are made. The appointment process isn’t much prettier. The Contender works best when it boisterously celebrates this ugliness. Through much of the movie, it’s like watching the emotional equivalent of grisly car wreck;  no one gets maimed onscreen, but the damage is just as real. In the near future, President Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski) has the unenviable task of picking an occupant for Air Force Two. The previous veep has just died, and after two weeks anticipation is high. Evans surprises several pundits when he rejects popular governor Jack Hathaway (William Petersen) in favor of Senator Laine Hanson (Joan Allen). Hathaway, like Evans, is a Democratic Party stalwart and has made headlines for trying unsuccessfully to save a young woman from drowning in an auto accident. Evans, however, selects Hanson despite the fact that she used to be a Republican. Evan, who is obsessed with his legacy (as well as the fact that he can order any conceivable dish from the White House kitchen), wants to set a precedent by picking the first female vice president.

He encounters a formidable roadblock when he crosses House Judiciary Chairman Shelly Runyan (Gary Oldman). Runyan has dozens of reasons for crushing the Hanson’s nomination. He’s bitter about losing the presidency to Evans, distrusts Hanson because she switched parties and believes her designation is merely showboating on Evans’ part. To derail her candidacy, Runyan launches a massive smear campaign. Rumors about Hanson’s sexual past pop up on web sites and even crawl into the confirmation hearings. During these moments, The Contender brims with a deliciously dark humor. While appearing cordial, Allen and Runyan are at each other’s throats. Paid to be liked, none of these Washingtonians ever say what they are thinking. Listening to fixer Kermit Newman (slyly played by Sam Elliott) flatly reject Governor Hathaway but tells him that he’s "the future of the Democratic Party" is like learning a new language. It’s fun to try to decode what these folks are actually conveying.

Unlike a lot critics who step behind the camera (try to sit through Chris Gore and Roger Ebert’s lame attempts at filmmaking), Lurie knows what he’s doing. He has coaxes terrific performances from his entire cast. Bridges is especially fun. One wonders if we elected the wrong thespian President. Even some of the minor turns are memorable. There’s an interesting sequence where Mariel Hemingway plays a reluctant witness during the hearings. She stumbles in front of the camera and the microphones as if she’s never had to deal with them before. It’s a credit to both Hemingway and Lurie that they can make a star cameo that doesn’t proceed like a distraction. One also wishes the Anita Hill and "Zippergate" scandals were as well written as when Runyan advises a junior Congressman, "Take out your dictionary, and cross the out the word ‘objectivity.’"

Because of the skill that Lurie demonstrates, the tidy conclusion is a betrayal. His appeal to the better side of human nature is out of character with the rest of the film. It’s sad to admit, but these protagonists are more fun when they’re nasty. When Hanson states her views on issues, Larry Groupé’s music swells loudly. What had once been a seductive insider’s view of power degenerates into a flat polemic. In addition, Lurie adds some lame surprise endings. Some of which don’t conform to the data he’s presented to the spectators earlier. It’s as if Lurie had lost faith in his vision and in the audience’s ability to stomach it.

With all that Lurie and his cast get right, there is still much to recommend The Contender. Nonetheless, one walks out of the film with the same queasy feeling that accompanies having voted for a candidate who backed out of a tough promise.

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