| Overall Grade: |
B- |
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| Story: |
B- |
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| Acting: |
B+ |
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| Direction: |
B- |
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| Visuals: |
B |
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Not the A B C's of W.
by Jim B (movies profile)
Oct 17, 2008
20
of
25 people found this review helpful
W’s life is a lot like Hamlet in this Oliver Stone bio-pic film version of a life if you like to view your Shakespearean plays on the back of a bubble gum card. This is a not so in-depth look into the ways of Number 43 and his Presidency. My feelings of Dubya aside, Oliver Stone makes a case in W. that Geo (as Laura calls him) is a misunderstood and semi-complicated man who is easily figured out by stating W’s love and need for acceptance by his father, motivated him to be something that was clearly not in the realm of his capabilities.
W.’s life is an exercise in living off the munificence of his family’s influence the way Oliver Stone has it, a political parvenu if you will. The film follows W’s life from Yale to just before his second term with the use of flashbacks‘. Most all of W’s flaws are crammed into this two hour piece and are generally handled with humor. He is portrayed as a cad in every extent of the word. From picking his teeth while in the presence of company to behaving childishly when he doesn’t get his way. A scene in Crawford TX where W has his admin on a quick paced walk discussing the pros and cons of invading Iraq, may be the most interesting and poignant scene in the film. They march in two’s conga line behind W on a dirt road trail deep into the vast flat uncultivated expanse of his farm where Condi Rice, Gen Tommy Franks, Colin Powell, Rummy, Ari and some others, are all in suits and office wear (W wearing outdoor work type clothing, Frank in military fatigues) as he spouts directives, loses his way under the hot noon sun and they all must traipse the burgeoning property a long distance, sweating, swatting away flies and bugs, to locate safety, AC and transportation.
Josh Brolin does an excellent job of portraying “W” for the screen and does not stray into caricature or sad character study. That cannot be said about the other performers portraying principle players at Geo’s side. Thandie Newton is exasperating as Condi Rice, and Rob Corddry is down right pitiful as Ari Fleischer. However Richard Dreyfuss is exceptional as a nefarious Cheney, with special attention going to Toby Jones as Karl Rove, the hungry manipulator worming his way into a place of power almost as if he were a Witch-doctor putting a spell on Dubya. Scott Glenn as Rummy, James Cromwell as Papa Bush, Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush and Jeffery Wright as Colin Powell are adequate in their portrayals however nothing special there.
Oliver Stone takes writer Stanley Weiser’s work and shows us that America was swindled into electing W.; first as Governor of Texas and then as US President; a man whose opinion was informed by plagiarizing a narrow amount knowledge from everyone around him, in essence a prevarication on his own life and ideals. His early life of evading responsibility in school and in work, has laid barren his future from out of the fecundity of his inheritance providing him with no curiosity for life and no vision for his or any others future. He needed to be saved and be born again to stop drinking and doing drugs.
The of the Iraq Invasion mendacity’s are the center piece of Weiser’s and Stone’s work being played as though they were playing off a blueprint of Stanley Kurbick’s brilliant 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove; or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”.
All in all this is not a film to run out and see. My feeling is there really isn’t much stuffing to W the man so there could never be much stuffing in a film with his character as the driving force. I was right. Those who expected this to be the piece-de-resistance of lampooning Bush, will be disappointed. Those who thought this might finally be something of great insight, will too be disappointed. |
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