'Game Change' review: Sarah Palin broke the rules

Phillip V. Caruso / HBO

Ed Harris as Sen. John McCain, Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin in "Game Change."

It's too bad that many viewers will probably see the HBO film "Game Change" through the lens of their own political positions and how they already feel about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In the weeks leading up to the film's broadcast on Saturday night, pro-Palin forces have stepped up complaints that the film is unfair and inaccurate, while HBO has stuck steadfastly to its guns and anti-Palin types are licking their chops, thinking that the film will confirm everything they already think about her. If it is safe to say that few minds will be changed by the film, it's sad to say that will mean few minds will be open to consider the nature of the "Game" that American politics has become. That's what the film is really about and why it's important.

Adapted from a portion of the book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime," the HBO film portrays Palin as woefully uninformed about current affairs or even the basics of how the federal government works, but blessed with remarkable charisma, a steely determination to speak her mind and, more to the point, to be an advocate for people she perceives as disenfranchised average Americans - a group once memorably referred to as the silent majority by President Richard M. Nixon.

If you already like Palin, you may view "Game Change" with empathy, if not sympathy, for a woman who was ! thrust i nto a situation for which she wasn't prepared, did the best she could, refused to knuckle under to professional "handlers" on the campaign staff of Sen. John McCain and was often kept at arm's length from the candidate himself. If you dislike Palin, you'll see her portrayed here as aggressive, naive, ignorant, foolishly self-involved, petulant and probably ill equipped to be the mayor of an Alaskan town, much less a heartbeat away from being president of the United States.

The film covers the period from the McCain staff's realization that the Republicans needed a game-changer to level the playing field against the smoothly running, well-financed campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, to the 2008 election night. After sorting through a variety of usual suspects, the McCain team settles on the little-known governor of Alaska to join the ticket. In the rush to change the game, campaign insiders barely vet the candidate and pretty much take her word that she knows enough about the economy, domestic issues and foreign policy.

Asset and liability

Campaign strategist Steve Schmidt (Woody Harrelson) champions Palin (Julianne Moore) at the beginning, but comes to realize that she is as much of a liability as an asset to McCain (Ed Harris). On the hustings, she can, and often does, win the hearts and minds of voters with her plainspoken rhetoric. But when she has to demonstrate her knowledge of even the basics of policy, much less the intricacies, she is often at a loss.

Realizing her shortcomings, McCain staffers try to give her a crash course in virtually every aspect of current political affairs, but much of it doesn't seem to take, as evidenced by what becomes Palin's own game-changer, her interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric in which she can't name a specific newspaper she reads daily.

As campaign staff members try to stanch the wounds of her gaffes, Palin digs in the heels of her "Johnny Choos," as she calls them, and refuses to be treated like an idiot. And in some ways, it's easy! to unde rstand why: Once she's been wooed onto the ticket by McCain and Schmidt, she's all but ignored by the candidate, told precisely what her positions on the issues will be, and essentially relegated to the role of set decoration in the campaign. The more frustrated she feels, the more desperate and self-absorbed she becomes, so much so that when she should be concentrating on the national campaign, she worries obsessively about how she's polling in Alaska.