Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who represented the Al Gore team during the 2004 Florida recount, has denounced the HBO drama Recount, scheduled to air on May 25. In an interview with today's (Thursday) New York Times, Christopher Said that he had asked to see a script of the film before production began but never received one. After reviewing a transcript provided by the Times, Christopher Said that he was stunned. "Much of what the author has written about me is pure fiction," he said. "It contained events that never occurred, words I never spoke and decisions attributed to me that I never made." Bill Daley, Gore's campaign chairman, who said that the filmmakers agreed to make changes in the script about his role in the recount, called the depiction of Christopher "absolute fantasy." Even James Baker, the chief Republican adviser at the time, who is depicted in the film as outsmarting Christopher at every turn, commented, "I don't think I was as ruthless as the movie portrays me, and I know he was not as wimpish as it makes him appear." Screenwriter Danny Strong, who interviewed the three men, acknowledged that he decided not to send Christopher the script "because I didn't feel that he was being totally candid in our interview." Meanwhile, the drama is getting some solid reviews. Syndicated columnist Liz Smith called it "one of the most viscerally powerful, fast-moving, literate, magnificently acted roller-coaster rides ever put on-screen."
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