PATH TO WAR: Drama. Starring Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland, Alec Baldwin, Bruce McGill, Dick Goodwin, Felicity Huffman, Philip Baker Hall. Directed by John Frankenheimer. (165 minutes. HBO. 8 tonight.
Almost 30 years after his death, Lyndon Baines Johnson is finally getting the attention he deserves. Biographer Robert Caro just released “Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson,” his third volume on the 36th president, and now director John Frankenheimer has made “Path to War,” an unforgettable film about the tension and tumult that defined — and ruined — Johnson’s White House years.
Vietnam was Johnson’s albatross. It haunted him at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., where he made a series of fateful decisions to deepen U.S. involvement in the war against Ho Chi Minh and communism in South Asia. Johnson inherited the conflict from John F. Kennedy, who first ordered combat missions against the Viet Cong in 1962. Frankenheimer’s HBO film makes clear that Johnson was deeply torn about committing more U.S. troops and weapons to fight the “little men in black pajamas,” as he once called the North Vietnamese.
Johnson’s brash way of talking rarely revealed itself in public speeches of his day, but in “Path to War,” Frankenheimer and actor Michael Gambon give us the real Johnson: a man committed to creating sweeping social legislation, including the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, but a man who also threatened speechwriters, berated advisers and used lewd and profane language in private.
“Path to War” is a film about powerful men debating their consciences and each other. At the movie’s heart are the numbing White House discussions about Vietnam that took place among Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (played by a chubby-faced Alec Baldwin), Clark Clifford (Donald Sutherland), Undersecretary of State George Ball (Bruce McGill) and other advisers, all of whom thought they knew how to handle Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong.
Gambon, the veteran actor who starred most recently in Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park,” is masterful as LBJ, giving the type of performance that should be studied by acting students for generations. It’s not all about yelling and gesticulating. When Gambon portrays Johnson watching televised protests of the Vietnam War, there is fear and regret in his eyes. When Gambon’s Johnson announces he is not running for another term (because of all the protests against his Vietnam policies), there is a genuine droopy-eyed sadness on his face.
HBO and Frankenheimer, the longtime director of such iconic American films as “The Manchurian Candidate,” deserve praise for revisiting Johnson’s presidency in such a broad, yet detailed way. One reason “Path to War” is so powerful is that screenwriter Daniel Giat and executive producer Howard Dratch spent more than a decade researching the film’s script, interviewing many figures from the Johnson administration and historians and scholars who also knew him. In addition, presidential historian Michael Beschloss, author of several books on LBJ, was a consultant on the film.
It all adds up to a revealing, poignant look at a presidency that’s relevant to today’s troubled times. Watching “Path to War,” one can easily imagine that President Bush and his Cabinet argued about Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan the same way that Johnson and his Cabinet argued about Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam. “Path to War” is a film about the power of the commander-in-chief, and the unexpected, unwanted events that can define a presidency.