The original version of this recap covered most of the film’s scenes and was slightly less disjointed but it was 2000 words long and that made some Russians pretending to be from Texas really mad so I cut it down for them. Also, nobody wants to read 2000 words about anything anymore. You should see the movie anyway before you read this. I promise, it’s really good even though you’ll want to throw your iPad at someone.
Get Me Roger Stone, a Netflix Original documentary, opens on Donald Trump screaming about himself in the 3rd person at the Republican convention in July 2016 while a man with white hair, no lips, and a head that spent too long in the birth canal watches from a side stage. He throws up his arms and celebrates during the balloon drop before we cut to him introducing himself in the next scene.
‘My name is Roger Stone and I am an agent provocateur,’ which means he admits that he’s someone who encourages others to break the law. No really, look it up. This makes me feel a little less sad about the forceps damage to his head. His white wig is sewn on nicely and he’s wearing a pinstriped suit because that is the preferred costume of fancy criminals. He’s speaking to us from a fancy ballroom with a fancy martini because he really wants us to know he’s fancy.
Ew, it’s Alex Jones, the squawking paranoiac from InfoWars. Jones, looking exactly like the Big Fig, is walking with Stone through an alley, carrying a megaphone under his arm because his f’ing mouth isn’t loud enough already. I have to remind myself that these are real people and that this isn’t an underground puppet show.
We see a clip from Trump’s Royal Escalator Ride on the day he announced his candidacy in June of 2015. His background music was a bleak Neil Young song that talks about a drug-addicted mom throwing her baby in the trashcan which is pretty much how Trump sees the country he pretends not to hate.
Oh good, it’s Tucker Carlson, a douchebag who says words. Fast forward.
Here’s Trump in a limo talking about himself and bragging about when he was billions of dollars in debt and what a great comeback he had. He leaves out the shady part with the Russians and the money laundering which is understandable. I like how he spins being broke and making bad decisions into a positive story. It’s a lot like the time I bought too many dresses with my Limited card and ruined my credit in college but now I’m a homeowner. I didn’t have to become a foreign agent to do it so my story is way more inspiring.
Trump’s now in one of those shiny gold rooms of his. Trump’s style is what my southern grandmother would call ‘tacky’ in a whispered voice but a writer for Politico perfectly characterized it as Dictator Chic. I bet Trump’s houses smell like stale Giorgio.
Stone is doing a voice-over, telling us that voters are too stupid to know the difference between Reality Television Trump and Presidential Trump which, unfortunately, is largely true. He tells us that politics ‘is showbiz for ugly people’ which could also be true since we immediately jump back to Trump’s sweaty tangerine face. To be fair, Trump used to be sort of hot in a Chlamydia Patient Zero kind of way.
Back to the big candidacy announcement where he tells a hired audience that the American Dream is dead and Mexicans are rapists. We’re treated to a montage of Trump supporters who are still furious about Ruby Ridge and then sweaty Alex Jones, yelling something unintelligible to a crowd of guys with enormous Adam’s Apples. Stone then whines about Elites. *loud sigh*
Dear Roger, elites are people who make you feel dumb, mostly because you are dumb. Stone brags about being a lying little shit as a kid and how he learned the “value of disinformation” when he was 12. Good lord, it’s like he wants to go to jail.
Old footage of Lane from Mad Men (or Barry Goldwater) talking about law and order which was code for locking up black people in 1964 just like it is in 2017. Stone was a Goldwater zealot (of course). He was also a Nixon groupie and shows us his Nixon serial killer shrine and the huge tattoo of Nixon’s face he has on his back. I hope Nixon had a restraining order on this guy.
Paul Manafort cameo! I bet he misses being able to sleep. He talks about Roy Cohn, the chief counsel for Senator Joe McCarthy, the man who cried about communists all the time back in the 50s. Cohn was known as an evil, soulless asshole so naturally he’s the one who helped connect these griftmonkeys. Trump became a client of the Stone Manafort lobbying firm back in the early 80s so they all go way back. Their firm liked to represent second-string dictators so it was a good fit for Trump.
Tucker Carlson moves his mouth but I’m fast forwarding since he never says anything that matters. Wait. Does he look like fat Chandler Bing? I don’t care enough to go back and check because he’s Tucker.
Michael Caputo, the Trump campaign communications guy and Stone protégé, is interviewed. Conveniently, Caputo also used to work for Russia’s Gazprom Media. *whistling* Nothing to see here.
By the way, this documentary is really good and you shouldn’t actually fast forward anything except maybe the Tucker Carlson parts.
Stone is at home with his 2nd wife and she seems nicer than his first wife. We’re seeing the softer side of Stone with his dog and family but he’s wearing a ‘Hillary for Prison’t-shirt so he can fuck off. His head is becoming more misshapen as he ages. I’m sad for a second about Baby Stone being suffocated in a birth canal but then I remember he destroyed America so whatevs.
Here’s Stone running around, flapping his gums about Bill Clinton’s extra-marital affairs in order to get the evangelicals excited about Dole.
Evangelicals: *yawn* something…something…family values…stop interrupting our porn.
The movie runs through various things we can blame Stone for like the George W. Bush presidency and the image of Eliot Spitzer having sex in black socks. He did screw over that nasty little Pat Buchanan though so I forgive him for a minute.
The Trump campaign is recapped for the rest of the film but it’s too soon to relive that. There’s a great story about the backstabbing in the campaign and it makes me hopeful that they’re all tripping over their little rat feet to flip on each other to Bob Mueller.
Speaking of rats, Trump and Stone are the guys who torpedoed Ted Cruz’s campaign by planting an obviously fake sex scandal in the Enquirer. Cruz is too Christian to call Stone a ‘ratfucker’ so he says, ‘copulating with a rodent’ which sounds a thousand times more obscene.
Wikileaks and the Julian Assange connection to Stone is highlighted. Man, a lot has come out about the Russia thing since this film was made, hasn’t it? I hope Mueller has someone going through the parts that were edited out of the film.
Ugh. Election night. Stone and Alex Jones are happy as they celebrate on the InfoWarsset. In a weird way, it’s entirely believable that this is how our democracy ends – not with jackbooted thugs and violent dictators – but with cartoon characters like Stone, Jones, and Trump. Empty, angry men who are too stupid to lead but are clever enough to exploit our weaknesses in order to make a buck and get even with an establishment that makes them feel inferior.
When asked what he’d say to people who will watch this film and hate him, Stone looks at the camera and says, ‘I will revel in your hatred,’ which I think he meant to seem menacing but instead it’s just gross and pathetic and for some reason, I feel a wave of pity for him. Then the feeling passes.
Thanks for reading. Watch the documentary since I there’s no way I can do it justice. You’ll feel dirty and despair for humanity but it’s very entertaining and it definitely sheds some light on how we got into this mess with Trump.
Amy Porterfield Levy 