Director: Oliver Stone

Runtime: 129mins

Oliver Stone wouldn’t know subtlety if it slapped him in the face, which it wouldn’t because that isn’t very subtle. With W. however, he hasn’t made a movie that’s entirely a slap in George W. Bush’s face either, much as we might like him to.

Josh Brolin has the 43rd President’s walk and talk down pat and it’s a testament to his performance that it’s hard to work past your feelings about the man he’s playing. Those who hate will find his performance too soft and those who love too mean. The only time Brolin isn’t W. is when it’s physically impossible – the 40-year-old actor playing the freshman Bush during a frat house initiation, shirtless and marinating in vodka, doesn’t really work.

The story moves from the frat house to the White House, flickering between the lead-up to the Iraq War and important events in W.’s life. Scenes that play out like the Bizarro version of a West Wing episode are juxtaposed with Bush the younger stumbling through his privileged life, screwing up jobs and drinking like a fish, disappointing his father (James Cromwell) repeatedly. He meets and marries Laura (Elizabeth Banks) (though the left-leaning librarian’s attraction to the mouth-breathing cowboy goes unexplained), finds God and abandons the bottle, but beyond suggesting obvious Daddy issues there’s not much meat here. It’s in the scenes with the cabinet discussing going to war in Iraq that Stone and his cast find something worth chewing on.

Richard Dreyfuss plays Dick Cheney as a bogeyman to frighten children and Thandie Newton plays Condoleezza Rice as a twitchy, tight-smiled caricature of a human being; in other words they’re perfect. Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright) is written as the only sane man in the White House, contradicting reality somewhat, but he provides a useful voice of reason in what would otherwise feel a lot like Dr. Strangelove. When Tony Blair (Ioan Gruffudd) is written the same way though, it’s just weird.

That refusal to become a modern-day Dr. Strangelove, the avoidance of the savage boot-kicking a good chunk of the audience expects to see, is an odd choice. Stone goes out of his way to appear objective because it’s history that’s written the farce and he’s just here to record it. Even presented dryly and with a relatively even hand, these events seems like a horrible joke.

Be first to comment on this article

Write Comment
Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Poster's IP addresses are logged.
Name:
Comment:
Code:*