Where's My Roy Cohn?
Directed by: Matt Tyrnauer
Documentary - 97 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 26 Sep 2019
Documentary - 97 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 26 Sep 2019
In 2018, President Trump blurted out, “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” This was his exasperated way of asking where his attack dog was. Where was the person in his Administration who would sneer at the law, cut corners, deliver the kickback, and ensure everything was duly covered up while grabbing the most attention-seeking headlines possible. According to Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary, Where’s My Roy Cohn?, Cohn was a disgusting human being. He exploited Congressional committees to ferret out homosexuals in government when he was a closeted homosexual himself. He illegally worked with the trial judge behind the scenes while prosecuting Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair. He more than likely committed murder while torching his own yacht for insurance money, stole money from banks, and got away with almost all of it. Even though Cohn died more than 30 years ago, his stain on American culture remains and was revived with Trump’s election; therefore, here is a new documentary to remind us who he was, the crimes he committed, and to piss everyone off all over again.
Matt Tyrnauer’s documentaries about places and people from an older version of New York City are becoming their own sub-genre. 2016’s Citizen Jane: Battle for the City exposed how one woman’s efforts stopped a super-highway from bisecting Manhattan and destroying the borough’s identity. 2018’s Studio 54 chronicled the meteoric rise and cocaine-fueled fall of the infamous nightclub. When Studio 54’s owners were arrested and authorities discovered mountains of coke and cash in the club’s ceiling, their lawyer, Roy Cohn, showed up with angry counter-accusations about government overreach and the victimization of these poor, innocent businessmen just trying to run a club. Using some of the very same footage in his new film, Tyrnauer charts Cohn’s birth, rise, malevolent influence, and downfall. There are plenty of talking heads to describe the man’s audacity, but few with a kind word.
Matt Tyrnauer’s documentaries about places and people from an older version of New York City are becoming their own sub-genre. 2016’s Citizen Jane: Battle for the City exposed how one woman’s efforts stopped a super-highway from bisecting Manhattan and destroying the borough’s identity. 2018’s Studio 54 chronicled the meteoric rise and cocaine-fueled fall of the infamous nightclub. When Studio 54’s owners were arrested and authorities discovered mountains of coke and cash in the club’s ceiling, their lawyer, Roy Cohn, showed up with angry counter-accusations about government overreach and the victimization of these poor, innocent businessmen just trying to run a club. Using some of the very same footage in his new film, Tyrnauer charts Cohn’s birth, rise, malevolent influence, and downfall. There are plenty of talking heads to describe the man’s audacity, but few with a kind word.
“You knew you were in the presence of evil.” “Consumed with making himself famous, to be perceived as famous.” “He always wanted to look like he came out of Miami Beach – you could never be too tan.” “He understood the political value of wrapping yourself in the flag.” These descriptions remind of you of anyone? They’re not actually said about Trump, but you can see the influence Trump’s former lawyer had on him. Many of these quotes come from Cohn’s own family, a series of cousins who knew very well the demagogue trolled New York City streets for male prostitutes while viciously attacking anyone who alluded to it. Cohn honed his attack dog skills working for Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare hearings in the early ‘50s and was the driving force behind the Army/McCarthy hearings because his close “friend” was drafted and he wanted the Army to handle him with special care.
Operating from a "there is no such thing as bad press" ethos, this relatively short, Bronx-born Jewish lawyer was apparently able to make very powerful men very nervous. It looks like he could also be your best friend. Nancy Reagan called to thank him for personally getting her husband elected President – for it was Cohn who got John Anderson to run as a third party in New York state. Was Cohn making up for a troubled childhood? Tyrnauer alleges he at least had some deep-rooted mama issues. One of the film’s best stories is how nobody in the Bronx would marry his mother – she was both the ugliest woman in town and had the worst attitude. Dad only married mom because he was promised a judgeship to do it. I wish someone would make a whole movie about that. Tyrnauer fills his film with plenty of pictorial and video montages to prove he’s done his homework, but what’s the point?
Those old enough to remember Cohn already know what a scumbag he was and those too young already get the idea with the guy in the White House. You know who comes off really bad in this documentary other than Roy? Barbara Walters and the conservative political establishment such as William F. Buckley, Jr. and William Safire. All of them swore up and down Cohn was an honest man and the definition of sincere integrity. It didn’t hurt that Cohn was one of their major sources for dirt either. 2019 is already awash in jaded feelings, disgust, and the inevitability of more to come. Where’s My Roy Cohn? merely adds more fuel to our national atmosphere of division and hatred. However, it apparently didn’t start with Trump, Dubya, or Nixon – Cohn started it all in 1951. Naturally, the film concludes with the line, “Donald J. Trump did not respond to multiple requests to be interviewed for this film.”
Comment Box is loading comments...
