AllMovie

One of director Robert Altman's more audacious experiments was this mini-series, originally produced for cable television, in which Altman, Doonesbury scribe Garry Trudeau, and actor Michael Murphy devised fictional presidential candidate Jack Tanner, a vague, stoic, all-American Democrat with his sights set on the White House. Beyond merely improvising the character, however, Altman and Murphy trotted him out on the campaign trail to interact with genuine voters and candidates, capturing impromptu moments with Bob Dole, Kitty Dukakis, and others. The versatile Pamela Reed is dead-on in the role of T.J., Tanner's demanding, chain-smoking campaign manager; Cynthia Nixon has the perfect air of cheeky ambition as his supportive daughter; and indie veteran Matt Malloy provides a hilarious turn as the campaign's beret-wearing videographer. Tanner is a logical extension of the concerns that the director raised in Nashville and Secret Honor: how the fallible must assume the pose of confidence to gain political acceptance; how easily false glory can be exposed by media; and how Americans can project their own hopes and insecurities upon any given figurehead. The series was shot on video, and cinematographer Jean Lepine adeptly shifts styles among satirical, static advertisement shots; news-style cinéma vérité; and the flowing, graceful camerawork common to the director's feature films. The low-budget, on-the-fly series was Altman's most urgent work in years, prefiguring his triumphant blurring of fiction and reality in The Player.