Punk'd (Part 1)

GET ME ROGER STONE (B-minus) - Too long by a good 20 minutes, this by-the-numbers study of the guttersnipe political strategist who connived to stick us with Richard Nixon and Donald Trump revels in the man's obnoxious rubber-neck value.

A year ago, this would have been more amusing; now, it's a little frightening and depressing. Only a sadist would enjoy being reminded that we, as a nation, have come full circle since the Nixon law-and-order era of racial dog whistles.

It takes three guys to write and direct this fawning documentary about Roger Stone, the amoral prick who came of age in the era of dirty tricks. He was there for the Southern Strategy of the '60s, the rise of Reagan and the Christian coalition in the '70s, Willie Horton in the '80s, his own raunchy Clintonian scandal in the '90s, and of course, with his former partner Paul Manafort, the nightmare that was the election of Trump. As one talking head notes, after Stone's entrenchment among the Republican elite, "Washington's been worse off for it ever since."

Stone welcomes the hatred of his detractors; he has no principles; and he shows a deviant need to win at all costs, without a thought given to the well-being of Republic. We get it -- politics ain't beanbag. But this provocateur oozes oil like my '74 Chevy Nova used to.

It would be one thing if the filmmakers didn't have a crush on their subject. Sure, they let talking heads criticize him, but Stone always gets the last word. (He also wears the wildest outfits. Whether clad in a cream-colored suit or dark pinstripes with a violet fedora, Stone plays quite the dandy.) And the filmmakers can't help but mention the tabloid headlines that outed him and his wife as swingers; but they soft-pedal it, leaving any questions about his disinformation and his deflections, or his sexuality, on the cutting room floor. Never addressed, either, is the way his hairline quickly recedes in the early footage but is miraculously restored in middle age.

At times this can be quite entertaining, but then Stone can be too -- when he's not leering at the camera or shown in clips cavorting with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. And the chronology seems out of balance. The film zips through the '60s, '70s and '80s and glosses past the outcast days of the '90s, before the film is barely half over. The rest of the film is devoted to the Trump phenomenon, from Stone's early grooming of the barbaric mogul to his and Manafort's deft exploitation of the disconnect between voters and the two major parties.

Either there's nothing particular amusing or intriguing about those recent events, or it's just ... too soon.