Robert De Niro criticizes Trump during the premiere of the movie Beatles & # 39; Yesterday & # 39;

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Robert De Niro says he is not afraid of losing his fans because of his criticism of President Donald Trump, adding that the current level of political discourse in the United States "is not normal". (April 18)
AP

NEW YORK – Can you imagine a world without President Donald Trump?

Robert De Niro, Oscar winner and co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival, would like to denounce the current commander-in-chief on the first Saturday of the movie "Yesterday" inspired by the Beatles.

In the film, "the world wakes up and has never heard of the Beatles," said De Niro before the start of the screening. "It made me sad, but it gave me an idea for another film, in which the world wakes up and has never heard of Trump, it would be a film that would make us all very happy." "

Robert De Niro, co-founder of Tribeca, on the left, and Jane Rosenthal present "Yesterday". (Photo: Theo Wargo, Getty Images)

The comment sparked enthusiastic applause from the audience, which continued throughout "Yesterday", whose trailer became a minor viral sensation when it aired for the first time in February with more than 30 million hits. combined views to date on YouTube.

The entertaining musical is directed by Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire") and written by Richard Curtis ("Love Actually"). It is played by newcomer, Himesh Patel, in the role of long-time musician Jack Malick, who plays concerts and writes songs that nobody seems to care about, other than his director and his love of heart, Ellie ( Lily James).

All this changes a fateful night when, for unexplained reasons, electricity is cut off all over the world and Jack is hit by a bus. The result: no one on Earth, aside from him, can remember popular items such as Coca-Cola, cigarettes and, yes, the Beatles.

He uses the latter to his advantage, singing the Beatles' catalog at concerts in his small English town and claiming to have written it himself. It quickly attracts the attention of pop star Ed Sheeran (who plays himself, with a self-disparaging charm), who believes that Jack is perhaps the best songwriter ever to have lived and presents him to his clever manager, Mandi (Kate McKinnon).

You can see where the story goes from there, as Jack quickly becomes famous, while battling his huge lie and his complicated feelings for Ellie. Although very entertaining for a while, the fragile premise gets tired during the second half of the film, while the novelty of listening to Beatles songs from a newcomer 's point of view is that it' s not easy. fades and the showbiz satire, sometimes biting, hits familiar rhythms of romantic comedy.

The first reviews of the festival were not nice. Variety wrote that she was reducing the Beatles to the ultimate product by stating at each turn: "These songs are transcendent!" And it's the fact that they continue to tell us, rather than showing us (that is, with musical sequences that have gained their transcendence), that "Yesterday", for all its timeless songs, is a song cut and dried, whimsical, prefabricated experience. "