Russell Crowe carries the load on SHOWTIME’s The Loudest Voice. Crowe channels Roger Ailes, the legendary TV Machievellian genius behind FOX NEWS. Based on Gabriel Sherman’s The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News – and Divided a Country, this 7-episode mini-series chronicles the rise of Ailes as he creates FOX NEWS and builds an audience. The two episodes aired so far shows how Roger Ailes leaves CNBC (and General Electric) and links up with Rupert Murdoch to form a unique new cable channel.
The FOX NEWS coverage of the 9/11 disaster boosted ratings and garnered an intensely loyal TV audience for the new cable channel. Russell Crowe should win an award for his role as the brilliant, but fatally flawed Ailes. Ailes’s treatment of women makes for uncomfortable viewing. His influence with the Bush Administration and the Republican Party grows. In the upcoming episodes, the sexual harassment accusations against Ailes grow despite the settlements Ailes and his lawyers negotiate. These sexual harassment actions bring Ailes’s FOX NEWS reign to an end in spectacular fashion. If you want to see the inside world of FOX NEWS and all the powerful characters, The Loudest Voice captures the creepiness of that world of sex and politics. GRADE: A
CAST AND CHARACTERS
Main
Russell Crowe as Roger Ailes
Seth MacFarlane as Brian Lewis
Sienna Miller as Beth Ailes
Simon McBurney as Rupert Murdoch
Annabelle Wallis as Laurie Luhn
Aleksa Palladino as Judy Laterza
Naomi Watts as Gretchen Carlson
Recurring
Josh Stamberg as Bill Shine
Mackenzie Astin as John Moody
Barry Watson as Lachlan Murdoch
Guy Boyd as Chet Collier
Josh Charles as Casey Close
Emory Cohen as Joe Lindsley
Patch Darragh as Sean Hannity
Lucy Owen as Suzanne Scott
David Whalen as Steve Doocy
John Finn as Jack Welch