Bit players are the fun part of the movie some time, and at others they can drag it down. In this case however the bit player in Gremlins 2, a film that probably shouldn’t have been made, is Daniel Clamp. John Glover is the kind of actor you don’t see that often but when you do he’s usually a rather off the wall character that adds a bit of spice to a film or TV show. He’s been on Law and Order: Criminal Intent a few times and he’s been around other venues as well. Almost all the time he’s been someone you either can’t stand because he’s that nuts or you can’t help but like because in many ways he’s still kind of a jerk but he’s an affable jerk.
Daniel Clamp is basically the equivalent of Donald Trump back in the day. If you try and equate him with the Trump of today you might not see the correlation, but if you step back in time the similarities would no doubt pop up very easily. He’s rich, he’s successful, and he’s a bit out there really. He doesn’t often connect with his workers and as a rule he doesn’t fully understand them until, well, no, he still doesn’t understand them. But he does try.
When gremlins start taking over the building he’s one of the many that are surprised, obviously this isn’t all in a normal day’s work. But somehow and through all odds he manages to survive and even look good while doing it. Now in all likelihood this was a much more heroic and even more clueless reference to Donald Trump back in the day, but somehow Clamp came out looking like one of the heroes of the debacle.
Was that really a bad thing?
Not really considering how you look at it. He wasn’t Mr. Macho throughout the story but he wasn’t beaten down either. He was just another guy trying to figure out how to get by and how to make things right. Even at the end when he was back to being all business he wasn’t that much of a jerk despite the fact that his mind seemed to always be on making money. Perhaps the reason he’s perceived as a bit of a jerk is that he’s always looking for the bigger better deal and never stops to look around and realize just who it is that’s helping him along with his business.
Overall Clamp is a difficult guy to read since he swings back and forth from being the guy you want to leave behind to the guy that you want at your back. It might be better that he was there than not to be honest, it gave the movie just a little more credibility.
As for his comparison to Trump it stands to reason that there are some similarities to the current POTUS when it comes to Clamp, but really, he seems a lot nicer than the current POTUS and not as inclined to just fly off the hook when he decides to say or do something. After all, he asks Billy for advice at some point.
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