Sean Penn’s Zelensky Documentary – The Hollywood Reporter

It’s been nearly a yr since Russia shocked the world by launching an invasion — or “particular army operation,” per Vladimir Putin — of Ukraine, touching off a bloody and devastating battle that’s nonetheless very a lot ongoing, with no seen finish in sight.

The fog of conflict is so thick it’s arduous for any of us to see via it, and in that sense, the documentary Superpower, co-directed by Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman, serves as an honest primer as to how the battle began, what the stakes are and who stay the important thing gamers, with a particular deal with Ukraine’s unlikely hero of a president, Volodymyr Zelensky. 

However after sitting via the two-hour-long exposé, one may maybe be mistaken in pondering that one other key participant within the conflict is Penn himself, a lot is the Hollywood star current in practically each scene within the movie that doesn’t contain archive footage (of which there’s rather a lot).

We see Penn on the bottom in Kyiv because the invasion occurs, sitting via safety briefings and press conferences, interviewing everybody from troopers to ambassadors to journalists, driving trains and varied chauffered autos throughout Ukraine throughout three totally different visits, making his case to politicians world wide, crossing the border to Poland on foot and visiting trenches within the Donbas. 

It will be straightforward to jot down the entire thing off as one huge and barely harmful vainness challenge, however let’s be sincere: This conflict considerations all of us, and the actor is doing all he can to assist the great guys. Placing his identify and face on the battle — together with, at one level, speaking with Sean Hannity and successful the praises of Newt Gingrich — might be one of the best factor a star of his caliber can do to attract consideration to the trigger.

That doesn’t imply Superpower isn’t a bit irksome in spots, and there are occasions whenever you want that at the least considered one of its seven credited camerapersons would have aimed the lens at somebody apart from Penn, who is consistently onscreen. That is particularly problematic when the filmmakers attempt to drum up suspense out of one thing as inconsequential as, say, the actor and his crew driving their manufacturing van from the Hyatt Regency to the InterContinental in downtown Kyiv simply after the invasion begins.

They appear to be asking us to care whether or not a Hollywood star will make it again to his 5-star resort alive, whereas the remainder of the nation may very nicely go down in flames. It’s a false transfer — and there are others, equivalent to after we observe Penn, wearing full army garb, as he tries to get as near the jap entrance as doable, with Justin Melland’s rating kicking into excessive gear to accompany the motion.

Apart from these eye-rolling moments, Superpower presents a reasonably complete have a look at a battle Penn himself admits he was “an entire Pollyanna” about, earlier than embarking on a challenge that will ultimately convey him face-to-face with Zelensky simply because the conflict was starting.

The latter’s rise from film and TV star — together with within the standard political satire Servant of the Folks, the place he performed an atypical man turned president — to chief of a rustic rife with corruption and threatened by one of many world’s best superpowers is a narrative worthy of an entire different documentary. As soon as he was elected, no person, together with most Ukrainians, anticipated the previous actor to have the ability to lead a stand in opposition to Russian forces, and one ex-soldier at first tells Penn that “he doesn’t have the balls for it.”

After all, Zelensky has already proved the world, and Vladimir Putin, unsuitable. In all probability the movie’s most transferring second is when Penn lastly sits down with the president for an interview in his secret bunker solely a day after the invasion occurs. Like different scenes within the film, we get each a two-shot and a response shot so Penn is as current in entrance of the digital camera as his topic, however that doesn’t take away from the facility and sincerity of Zelensky’s phrases.

“Should you’re not able to win, don’t struggle,” he tells Penn throughout a second interview that occurred this previous June, when the 2 discuss in regards to the conflict’s previous, current and future. It’s phrases like people who have turned Zelensky into a world figurehead and galvanizing motivational speaker, encouraging world leaders to again a rustic that’s been an underdog for the reason that begin.

The movie underlines how Zelensky’s lengthy profession as an actor certainly helped him behave so calmly and confidently in entrance of the digital camera. Seeing Penn and the president engaged, albeit on completely totally different ranges, within the best battle of our time, proves how a lot celebrities and politicians have all the time made unusual bedfellows — and generally only a single bedfellow being each issues without delay.

Past these memorable interview sequences, a lot of Superpower covers occasions that anybody following the conflict this previous yr might be conscious of, leading to a film that serves extra as a firsthand recap of all that has occurred, and can proceed to occur, for who is aware of how lengthy.

Talking gruffly and sincerely, his eyes generally shaded by aviator glasses, Penn reminds everybody he meets that democracy and freedom are on the road right here, pounding tons of cigarettes, glasses of water and presumably vodka as he hammers his message dwelling time and again. (The fixed smoking and ingesting might show extra dangerous for the 62-year-old actor than all his journeys to the frontlines.)

If Penn’s level in visiting Ukraine, assembly Zelensky and co-directing Superpower was to make himself heard, then it’s mission completed.