With two Oscar-nominated performances by Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges, and an equally impressive turn from Gary Oldman, The Contender has dozens of compelling moments, and a timely political theme. Unfortunately director Rod Lurie must have paid a lot less attention to the script than he did to his cast--the story's riddled with maddening implausibilties and its well-earned key speeches are poisoned with the sickly swell of big-scene music. Allen plays Laine Hansen, a Republican-turned-liberal senator chosen by President Jackson Evans (Bridges) to replace his deceased veep. For reasons as contorted as Hansen's ideological profile, the President's arch-enemy, Republican congressman Shelly Runyon (Oldman) wants a different Democratic hero to get the vice-presidency, and a campaign to smear Hansen ensues. Of course the dirt dug up on Hansen, involving a sorority induction ritual orgy, is out of character--and the story's ultimate resolution of what happened equally bizarre. The movie's point--a straight-up defense of the Clinton even-presidential-kinky-sex-is-private-and-moot doctrine--is truer than the phrase "President George W. Bush," but much weakened by the porous script.