James Woods plays N.Y. Mayor Giuliani
The first unauthorized, made-for-TV movie about Rudy Giuliani is done, but the controversy is just beginning.
That’s because makers of “Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story,” have for the first time taken real news footage from Sept. 11, complete with falling bodies and firefighter funerals, and woven it into a commercial film.
“People said, ‘You cannot show that!’ and I got really angry,” Transylvanian-born director Robert Dornhelm said when asked about the graphic sequences in the USA Network movie, due to air March 30. The New York Daily News got a first peek at the movie Monday.
“It is the same hypocrisy of all the meat-eaters in this country who don’t want to see what goes on in the butcher’s shop,” added Dornhelm from his Los Angeles office. “I wanted to show it in order to show the pain that this (terrorist) action has caused.”
To do that, Dornhelm chose to re-create Giuliani’s every step on Sept. 11, with the dust-covered James Woods as mayor.
These Sept. 11 sequences, which are interspersed throughout the movie, are all shot in video, giving them the odd feel of a newscast or a very low-budget film. It doesn’t help that much of the movie was filmed in Canada.
The format makes for some rough transitions, as when the boots of a real firefighter trudging through the dust of Sept. 11 morph into a young Donna Hanover’s stiletto heels, walking home to Rudy with goodies from Balducci’s.
But the drama here may be the biggest letdown of all, at least to anyone who lived through the real Giuliani, a man who, love him or hate him, probably deserves more than the 89 minutes offered here.
The dialogue is stilted and heavy-handed from the get-go, when we find Giuliani, played by Woods, contemplating his political demise on Sept. 10, 2001.
“This time tomorrow, the polls will be closed in the primaries and I’ll be history,” muses Woods. “A history lesson: He was mayor. He did some good.”
There are certainly plenty of salacious chapters, including Giuliani’s alleged affair with former press secretary Cristyne Lategano, which is hinted at but never shown. His battle with cancer his and relationship with Judith Nathan also are prominent.
For political aficionados, there are fights with former Deputy Mayor Peter Powers, deal-making with Liberal Party boss Ray Harding, and lines like “Tell Lhota to shut down the Empire State Building,” a reference to former Deputy Mayor Joe Lhota.
Dornhelm conceded he’s no Rudy fan. “All in all, he isn’t my hero,” Dornhelm said.
Not surprisingly, Giuliani wasn’t exactly rushing to get a copy of the film, which is based on a book by Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett.
“We have nothing to do with this movie, we haven’t seen this movie and therefore have nothing to say about it,” said Giuliani spokeswoman Sunny Mindel.
