Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) - Rotten Tomatoes

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008)

TOMATOMETER

93%
88%

AUDIENCE SCORE

79%

Critic Consensus: Boogie Man is a complex, absorbing study of the contradictory life and times of architect of modern smear politics.

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Movie Info

"Boogie Man" is a comprehensive look at Lee Atwater, the blues-playing rogue whose rambunctious rise from the South to Chairman of the GOP made him a household name. He mentored Karl Rove and George W. Bush and played a crucial role in the elections of Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He wrote the Republican Party's winning playbook which the McCain campaign is currently using.

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Cast

Lee Atwater
Terry McAuliffe
Joe Conason
Roger Stone
Ed Rollins
Michael Dukakis
Bob Novak
Tucker Eskew
Ronald Reagan
Howard Fineman
George H.W. Bush
Mary Matalin
Karl Rove
Sam Donaldson
George W. Bush
Dick Cheney
B.B. King
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Critic Reviews for Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story

All Critics (29) | Top Critics (16)

Fascinating to a political junkie like me who wasn't aware of the game back then.

December 30, 2008
Top Critic

Director Stefan Forbes has assembled a brilliantly complex portrait that shines an unnerving light on the man who painted the landscape of contemporary American politics.

November 10, 2008 | Full Review…
Top Critic

By the end of Forbes' brisk, economical portrait, Atwater has been revealed as a repugnant and pathetic soul--and a political visionary, among the first to fully understand and harness the raw power of voters' fears.

October 31, 2008 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…
Top Critic

Conventional but absorbing.

October 30, 2008 | Rating: B | Full Review…
Top Critic

Stricken with brain cancer in 1990, Atwater renounced his Machiavellian ways, but as Forbes points out, his legacy lives on in his eager proteges Karl Rove and George W. Bush.

October 30, 2008 | Full Review…
Top Critic

Boogie Man is a fascinating portrait of an almost likable rogue.

October 30, 2008 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…
Top Critic
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Audience Reviews for Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story

It tells its story in a way you might expect, but it has a few fascinating moments where even Atwater's most ardent defenders of his political tactics in Republican campaigns still decry him as a vicious monster capable of anything. It might even be fair to say that they only liked him because he was on their side.

Alec Barniskis
Alec Barniskis

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