Best Supporting Actor 2000: Jeff Bridges in The Contender

Jeff Bridges received his fourth Oscar nomination for portraying President Jackson Evans in The Contender.

The Contender is an interesting films at time, but I feel it is a bit obviously, and too simply written at other times. Also it seems like it goes on for too long.

Jeff Bridges portrays President Jackson Evans who wants to make a legacy for himself by trying to make his new Vice President a woman. The way Evans is written and the way Bridges portrays him is rather simple. The film suggests very little about the President other than being a man who stands by his beliefs, and will quietly get what he wants. Bridges shows his usual charisma well in the role whenever he is trying to quietly get what he wants. His performance is pretty much just this charisma. This is just fine and fits in with the role well enough. I never find anything he does with his performance to be completely amazing though, but he does bring enough of quite dignity and command I suppose.  Bridges has a big speech at the end which is finely handled by not really amazing. Bridges's performance is just nothing special most of the time, and President Evans simply is not really an all that complicated character, and I really do not see anything Bridges does that any competent actor would have done in the role. Bridges's performance is suitable but I never really found it to be very special or even all that memorable.