NZIFF 2019 Where’s My Roy Cohn?

Where’s My Roy Cohn? 2019.
Directed by Matt Tyrnauer.

A searing portrait of notoriously malicious lawyer Roy ‘don’t tell me about the law, just tell me who the judge is’ Cohn delves into the dark arts of American politics.

This searing portrait of the notoriously malicious and morally bankrupt lawyer Roy Cohn, whose career spanned from Senator McCarthy’s anti-communist witch-hunt in the 1950s, through to advising Donald Trump, delves into the dark arts of American politics and one man’s willingness to do anything to accrue power.

“Roy Cohn was a corrupt lawyer, political dirty trickster, mafia associate and scumbag. He was a self-hating Jew who powered the engine of one of the worst antisemitic moments in American history, the demonization and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. He was a closeted man who refused to publicly identify as gay even as he was dying of Aids. He was so famous for being a mean bastard that there were not one but two jokes at his expense on The Simpsons. There are not too many lawyers that can make such a claim…

Tyrnauer’s film… a collection of talking heads (including former protege Roger Stone) and news clips… [deals] in an avalanche of facts. If there is a thesis to be found (other than ‘boy, wasn’t Roy Cohn a jerk?’) it’s in finding the seeds to Trump’s garden nurtured by Cohn’s odious work. Despite a 20-year age difference, the two were close for many years. They first bonded over a shared love of denying African Americans their civil rights. This blossomed into corruption and kickbacks during the erection of Trump Tower…

This film connects a direct line between Roy Cohn’s belligerent, boorish and obstructionist ways and our current, less eloquent nightmare. To answer the question ‘where’s my Roy Cohn?’ he is, unfortunately, in the White House.” — Jordan Hoffman, The Guardian