Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn’ on HBO, a Fascinating Portrait of an American Villain

Ivy Meeropol’s HBO documentary Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn is the second factual bio of the New York lawyer notorious for prosecuting Julius and Ethel Rosenberg right into the electric chair, and aiding and abetting Joseph McCarthy in his vile anti-communist inquisitions. Where’s My Roy Cohn? preceded it last year, detailing the mentor-protege relationship between Cohn and current cretin-in-chief Donald Trump, but the new film has a more personal touch: Meeropol is the granddaughter of the late Rosenbergs. Be warned — anyone who’s put off their lunch by the sight of dead reptilian eyes sunk into a fetid human skull might need to turn away from this film and its many images of Cohn’s cold face.

BULLY. COWARD. VICTIM. THE STORY OF ROY COHN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Meeropol’s interviewees reserve their choicest commentary for Roy Cohn: “He was a lawless madman.” “The personification of evil.” “Without conscience.” “Like Dracula coming out of his box at midnight.” But her father, Michael Meeropol, simply tells the story of how his parents, accused of being Russian spies who stole documents related to the Manhattan Project, were railroaded by Cohn, and how he and his brother Robert — who took the surname of their adopted family; they were 10 and six years old when their parents were executed — worked for decades in an attempt to clear their names. Even thirty years after the fact, Cohn still doubled down on his assertion that they were traitors who deserved the death penalty. (Documentation and testimony would later show that the Rosenbergs were likely guilty of lesser crimes that wouldn’t have sent them to the chair.)

By the time he was 27, Cohn was McCarthy’s right-hand wingman, something Meeropol gets into because no portrait of the guy is complete without his feckless and malodorous ideologies. The director also uses Cohn and McCarthy’s persecution of gays and Jews as a springboard to remind us that Cohn was gay and Jewish, the former of which he kept in the closet for the most part, except when he’d vacation in the gay haven of Provincetown, Mass., inviting dozens to his coke parties that were even too disgusting for John Waters, who was one of the few revelers who recognized his foul stench when he entered a room. Meeropol also interviews a gay prostitute who was shepherded to a remote fortress in the woods to service Cohn and his boyfriend on two occasions.

The film also details Cohn’s status as a man about town in New York City and someone who could wield extraordinary political power. His business dealings were tied tightly to the mob, and executed on the same moral footing. He never paid his bills and openly bragged about not paying his taxes. He associated with bastions of sainthood such as George Steinbrenner, Ronald Reagan, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump and miscellaneous NYC godfathers, including Fat Tony Salerno, whose TOTALLY LEGIT concrete-construction business built Trump Tower on a deal brokered by Cohn. Cohn considered Trump to be a good friend. But then Cohn contracted AIDS — although he denied it vehemently in public — and Trump subsequently disassociated himself from the man. Cohn’s repugnant legacy lives on.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: No movies, just many of our nightmares.

Performance Worth Watching: I’d read every word of a 2,000-page stream-of-consciousness diatribe on Cohn written by John Waters.

Memorable Dialogue: Waters wrinkles his nose at Cohn’s presence in Provincetown: “I wouldn’t’ve had my nostril on the same straw as that pig.”

Sex and Skin: Just still shots of Cohn’s reptilian body in a Speedo.

Our Take: My generation knows McCarthy, but less so of Cohn, outside the general idea that he’s one of America’s greatest assholes, and when his name was urped up in the wake of our current president’s rise to shame. So Bully. Coward. Victim. serves as a worthwhile catchall of Cohn’s infamy, with the additional fascination of Meeropol’s personal family story. By detailing some of the intricacies of Cohn’s sexual subterfuge, she also paints him as a to-the-bone hypocrite, which is a fine way of exacting revenge. Meeropol might not see it that way; the film is likely her exploration of a sinister cloud over her family, and her perspective renders the work compelling. Maybe there’s deeply ingrained bias in it, but even the gamest attempt at an objective take on Roy Cohn would make Portrait of a Serial Killer look like Snoopy Come Home.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Just don’t eat before you do it.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn on HBO