The Apprentice is the film, the origin story, the creation of Donald Trump as we all know him—its release and its timing clearly deliberate. The film—dealing in evidence, in fact—has rippled many red waves over the pond and the notoriously thin-skinned Trump has denounced it from on high. The film is a chronology of Trump’s rise during these early, formative periods and specifically his relationship and mentoring by Roy Cohn, a NY lawyer famous for his cutthroat approach and methods of business. Cohn is enlisted by Trump to fight a discrimination case and to hold a bar against ethnic minorities trying to become tenants in apartment buildings owned by the Trump family. Trump’s zeal to fight is clearly to gain approval from his family and to match or outdo his more successful brother, Fred Jr. It is not long before Trump is immersed in Cohn’s world and dealings. How Cohn acts, speaks, and interacts with others and the unorthodox measures of blackmail Cohn uses to dismiss Trump’s case seems a blueprint for Trump and his future actions. We see Trump be inspired by this mentor to a point where his mimicry of Cohn sows the seeds of distrust, Trump pivoting from him into new business ventures in aviation and gambling; the inexperienced Trump ignoring Cohn’s advice and steering. Cohn is seen as someone happy to use any underhanded methods to gain the upper hand and much is made of Cohn’s blackmail and “framing” as head prosecutor in the Rosenberg trial in 1951—which resulted in the Rosenberg couple’s execution. Cohn’s justification of his actions is laid out in a chilling and pivotal statement to Trump: “It doesn’t matter if she was innocent or not, she had to die. Because you have to set an example, and you have to be willing to do anything to anyone.” You need to work towards a bigger ideology (America) and everything you do needs to be towards it, regardless of how bad it is. “America is the biggest client.” Cohn’s decline and eventual death is juxtaposed with Trump’s accelerated rise as a New York City property developer and eventual celebrity. The final scenes of the film introduces his biography The Art of the Deal—the irony being that the book’s content varies wildly in what was seen over the course of the film’s narrative: the green Trump and his assimilation of all that Cohn stood for and acted upon. Trump is portrayed here as vainglorious (obviously) but the film dwells on his frailties (hair loss, weight gain, steroid use) and his utter disrespect for women, culminating in a detailed and disturbing alleged sexual assault on his eventual estranged wife Ivana. The film acts as a kind of evidence-based argument here, shot in 4:3 square TV ratio that evokes the technology of the period (late 1970s to 1980s), mainly using a hand-held approach. These techniques deliberately blur the lines between feature and documentary, heightening these disturbing and despicable scenes with their accuracy and realism. Trump ultimately is seen as flawed, though the film ends at a point where his stock is on the rise, no mention of disastrous future projects nor political aspirations at this point. Released with incendiary timing, this was bound to be controversial; though the film has garnered many award nominations along the way. This is, in essence, the creation of Trump— the person, the image and the ego... It goes a long way to explain a lot!