I know Ronald Reagan intimately. I lived in Texas when he was President. I am a news junkie, so I followed every twist and turn of his campaign and his Presidency. Let me tell you every detail and nuance of this movie is an out and out lie. It's as I said Fake History. It was so boring too, the movie I mean. The reality was exciting, packed with incident, and it was exuberant and optimistic. The man brought America back from the dead, and you felt alive, excited, watching it happen. If the movie told the real story it would have been as exciting and inspirational as hell. So in short, Ronald Reagan's economic legislation set America on a ten year path of growing GDP and 30 million good new jobs. For ten years after the US never had a down month in GDP. At the same time, he brought the Soviet Union down without firing a shot. Communist Russia was a fearsome enemy, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, and an imperialist ideology with the stated goal of conquering the whole world. Just think of the Nazis, but with a hammer and sickle instead of a swastika. Nothing in the movie gave him any credit for his successes. Instead it dwelled on a visit to the wrong German cemetery and selling arms to Iran for hostages, and giving money to the Contras to fight the Sandanistas in El Salvador contrary to a Democratic law against it. Barack Insane Obama has done it 1000 times. So sad.

James Brolin and Judy Davis should have won Emmys for their performances as President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis Reagan from their first meeting to the end of their two terms in the White House. Brolin reminds me of why everybody liked Reagan. He seemed easy-going and he could talk to anybody. When Michael flunks out of school, he doesn't bash or criticize him but gets him a tutor and help with Nancy. The Reagan household is a blended one. He was married to actress, Jane Wyman, who was an Oscar winner and on Falcon Crest during his years of Presidency. Sadly, we never see Jane Wyman at all. I didn't know that the younger Patti and Ron Jr. didn't know about Michael and Maureen until Michael came to stay with them. Judy Davis as Nancy Reagan is divine in this role. She really portrays her as a wife, mother, and above all else Ron's best friend and partner in life. They really were an extraordinary couple in marriage. When he actually did die, Nancy didn't want to leave his coffin. It was a heartbreaking goodbye.

After seeing this movie, I would admit that the acting by Brolin was excellent! However, I feel that President Reagan was portrayed as a man that couldn't or wouldn't care to make important decisions. This is contradictory to the actual man and President that he was. Case in point. A speech was being prepared to address the soviet union directly concerning freedom and the iron curtain. All of the advisor's of his administration, including Colin Powel, were concerned about the speech he was going to make. They felt that he statements would insult the leadership of the Soviet Union and more importantly, Mikial Gorbachev. The now famous statement, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!" had an enormous impact on the policies and procedures between the United States and Russia. I just don't believe that this movie was a fair example of Ronald Reagan the man or the President. I feel that President Reagan will go down in history as one of the finest in American history...

I'd love to hear what others thought about this movie. Maybe I am more a fan of Reagan and a bigger sucker for hype than I thought, but the supposed bio-film, 'The Reagans,' to which CBS gave the boot, was garbage. A Cabinet-appointed committee should be set up to investigate this bad movie-making. CBS -- and Showtime -- should have given it the boot because it was a rain-soaked cardboard facsimile of Ron and Nancy and a bad movie, not for any ideological controversy. "Idiot-logical," maybe -- logical to idiots. The real controversy is that the movie sucked amazingly well and garnered any extensive media attention at all, short of the kind that 'Gigli' earned, for being a bad film. The only controversy growing out of this bad pic should be a belief growing among conspiracy theorists that the movie's real goal was to coyly reveal that the Reagans were actually robots that went wildly out of control, created by Ron's former employer, GE. The characterization of Nancy was particularly one-dimensional (no, I won't even give it 2-D). The expression on her face through almost the whole movie -- the two hours I suffered through, of the three -- had me waiting for her to pull out a big knife and start jabbing at anything that moved, like the freaky undead Nazi assassin in 'Hellboy.' Like most movies written and produced to leave a bad taste in one's mouth, it was without a good script and strived unimaginatively to make people think Nancy was solely a greedy woman who manipulated her brainless husband into politics. It will die a death like any such movies and TV shows, such as this goofy Henry Winkler show where he was trying to make fun of conservative radio hosts only to look like a dork himself. Add to that list Bill Maher's very existence in the public eye; once an enjoyably opinionated talker, he's proved to be more myopic than most of his guests on 'Politically Incorrect.' Who cares what you think, you silly bio-film producers and writers. "Why can't you tell an honest story, no matter your intent?" That's what I'd like to ask the creators of 'The Reagans.' I wasted two hours of my life trying to figure out why anyone made this feeble movie, rather than trying to recall the good, bad and ugly of Reagan's public life with some sort of relevance.NOTE: 0 out of 34 people found this review useful as of 2008. I want to thank each and every one of you. Judging from the other reviews on here, which got very favorable reactions from readers, I am happily alone in this instance.