Theatrical Review of W.

" "W." will invariably be roasted by certain segments of the population.

Theatrical review

By Jason P. Vargo AND Christopher Long
First published Oct 16, 2008

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THE MOVIE ACCORDING TO CHRISTOPHER

The most enduring impression of George W. Bush as portrayed by Josh Brolin in "W" is that of a man who is hungry. Very hungry. In scene after scene, Bush is constantly eating or drinking, whether chugging Pabst Blue Ribbon at a fraternity hazing or valiantly engaging a pretzel in a struggle for the future of the free world. He scarfs down a sandwich and chips while discussing "advanced interrogation techniques" with Dick Cheney: "What, you mean like pullin´ out their toenails? Heh heh." When he first meets future wife Laura at a barbeque he answers her questions about education reform while chomping on a burger, and demonstrates his people skills by still managing to get her seven digits.

Director Oliver Stone plays this for comedy – he repeats the trick when "Rummy" Rumsfeld shovels pecan pie down his gullet during a crucial meeting – but also to establish Bush as man for whom sensation trumps philosophy. When Bush describes himself as a man who goes with his gut, he means it literally. Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser mimic Karl Rove by painting a portrait of the Yale and Harvard educated scion of wealth as a man of the people. No fancy schmancy eight course meals at Le Bec Fin; a hot dog and beer (later, O´Doul´s) will do just fine. He´s the kind of guy you want to have a beer with which, for some, apparently means he´s also the guy who want to be President.

For this reason, viewers expecting a relentless pile-on attack from the muckraking director may find the film´s portrayal of its subject surprisingly sympathetic. Stone adds an extra layer of identification by hammering away at the father-son relationship. Ge-O (as Laura calls him) just can´t match up to the standard set by Poppy Bush (a standout performance by James Cromwell) or even by younger brother Jeb who is clearly the son being groomed to follow in daddy´s footsteps. Even after he is sort-of elected President, Dubyah (as Laura calls him) only gets a congratulatory note from Poppy.

This may make him a more understandable character, but not necessarily a sympathetic one. Brolin´s George W. Bush possesses undeniable charm and is not vicious or hateful, and certainly not stupid. He is simply a lazy man with a lazy mind, a laziness that leads him to seek answers to complex world problems that are as simple as his taste in food. Good and bad. With us or against us. And he seeks out (or is beholden to) a team of advisers who filter out all potential distractions such as fact or "nuance" that might make life in the White House more difficult. If the best thing that can be said about our soon-to-be ex-President is that he meant well but simply didn´t care enough to ask questions on the road to disaster, he hardly qualifies as sympathetic. He´s just the kind of guy you want to have a beer with.

Bush´s keepers are certainly a colorful lot, mostly portrayed as caricatures (though it´s hard to tell, isn´t it?) by a cast at the top of its game. Jeffrey Wright brings some dignity to Colin Powell who serves as the cabinet´s conscience before selling out to become a team player, but Stone showers little love on the rest of the gang. Richard Dreyfuss´ Dick Cheney is a scowling sadist who openly talks of empire-building ("There is no exit plan!"). Scott Glen´s Donald Rumsfeld is a smug, sanctimonious know-it-all whose grasp exceeds his reach and his competence. But nobody comes across as poorly as Condoleezza Rice. Thandie Newton, fitted with prosthetic lip, plays Rice as a shrill hunch-backed toady who serves as Dubyah´s enabler-in-chief, constantly patting him on the back and echoing his every word as if to sanctify it as Holy Scripture. You half-expect Bush to snap back "Shut up, Smithers!"

If these portraits sound familiar, they should. Stone is telling history through media sound bites here. In the case of the Bush cabinet, the film stops at this surface level, but regarding Dubyah there is a deeper purpose. This not the story of the "real" George Bush but rather a Bush-remix who inhabits a parallel universe. The film uses all of Bush´s greatest hits but deploys them in different situations than in actuality. Bush calls himself "The Decider" while lunching with Cheney. He utters the famous "Fool me twice… won´t get fooled again" line at a high-level cabinet meeting, the same place he also swears that Saddam Hussein will regret "misunderestimating" him. "Is our children learning?" now takes place during Bush´s gubernatorial campaign.

It´s a subtle thing from a director seldom credited with subtlety but I think it establishes the film as a kind of alternative history rather than a "Behind the Music" exposé. When you add in the use of fictional news programs like "Sports Cap" (instead of Sports Center) and "SpinBall" (a proxy for Fox news) next to the caricatured cabinet members, you get the distinct sense of a world that is slightly off-kilter, a world reflected by the fun-house mirror of a media that is every bit as lazy and every bit as desperate to seek simple answers as President Bush is.

Out of this Bizarro universe emerges one moment of crystal clarity, the most powerful scene in the movie. When Bush delivers his State of the Union speech in which he christens the axis of evil and rattles hi saber, Stone cuts to actual footage of Congress enthusiastically applauding: John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi along with their counterparts across the aisle. To viewers looking forward to a simple round of Bush-bashing, it´s a stinging bi-partisan rebuke, a reminder that it took way more than two to tango our way into Iraq.

In a political climate where liberals claim in all seriousness that George W. Bush and Sarah Palin are "idiots" and conservatives cherish their paranoid fever dreams of a liberal media conspiracy, the reception of "W" will likely split along partisan lines. But there´s much more at play in Oliver Stone´s cock-eyed take on one of the modern era´s most divisive and derided presidents. A sympathetic portrait? That may be an exaggeration. But it´s a much more complex one than you might expect.

An 8/10 on the DVDTown scale.

THE MOVIE ACCORDING TO JASON

There is a scene at the tail end of Oliver Stone's "W." in which the President George W. Bush is speaking to reporters when a question comes out of left field. To paraphrase, where do you think you went wrong and what have you learned from the mistakes? This version of the current president fumbles in trying to find some kind of answer. That's not the important part. What is important are the reactions from each of the other characters we've seen for the past two hours. Gone is the bravado, the manipulation, the forced platitudes. They understand the presidency-at least the film version-has been nothing but an elaborate game of smoke and mirrors with very little substance from the main man to back it up.

And that is ultimately the sad part about this chapter in American history. Josh Brolin's W. is continually kept in the dark, given just enough information to make it appear as though he's made a decision and yet there's nothing behind the words, no questioning the advisors or vetting information for himself. It is a path Stone presents time and again throughout the picture, with flashbacks all the way back to his college days at Yale through the legendary "Axis of Evil" State of the Union speech. To watch the story on screen is to begin to understand a man consumed with getting his father's approval, not to mention outdoing his brother Jeb (who is seen only once, very briefly). Writer Stanley Weiser never strays too far from the idea, however right or wrong it may be in real life. This is the film's strength: to be on message nearly all the time. Despite time jumps and a complete disregard for introductions and exposition, "W." knows what it's driving at, not to mention it's audience.

The intended audience won't need subtitles or explicit name drops in the first scene (in the Oval Office featuring all the key players); they are known simply by reputation. Throughout the two plus hour running time, most of the set up work is done for the script by the shared remembrance of the news reports, especially when the conflict in Iraq takes center stage. We grimace when Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) makes the case for the invasion and squirm as Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright) backs down in his opposition to it. There is no need to let us know Paul Wolfowitz (Dennis Boutsikaris) and Donald Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn) are on the pro-war side; no introduction is needed for Thandie Newton's nearly comical portrayal of Condoleezza Rice. So with that knowledge safely tucked away with the audience, Weiser focuses in on various events in the president's life, constructing a jigsaw puzzle of who the man.

To be fair, the jigsaw puzzle never fully completes itself. Each scene feels like a fragment of a memory with no lead in or real narrative flow to what is presented on screen. The entire 2000 and 2004 election seasons are passed over without a mention-an odd decision; W. and Laura Welch nee Bush (Elizabeth Banks) getting married is left out. However, the connective tissue is there. For instance, instead of showing either of the aforementioned events, there are sly references to them actually taking place. Which is enough, in the grand scheme of things, for most people. After all, the purpose of the film is to show what we don't know, now what is a matter of public record. (Besides, the HBO movie "Recount" put us through the 2000 election all over again.)

Stone has the penchant, in directing, of keeping entirely too close to the characters. Maybe it's a subtle way of commenting on Bush looking into the eyes of Russia's Vladimir Putin and seeing a good man; maybe it's nothing more than a quirk. Whatever the reasoning, constantly being in near close up of every character turns into an exhausting affair, especially in light of the handheld camera the director employs more often than not. He also drops the camera too low for its own good at several points in the film, making the audience look up the noses of the characters, most notably the last show of the picture. Is this a subtle way of reinforcing the aristocracy of the Bush family or an unconscious choice?

"W." will invariably be roasted by certain segments of the population. Liberals will love it, conservatives will hate it, the rest of the world will think America more buffoonish than they already do. There is an argument to be made that since none of the actual participants had any involvement in the scripting process, anything which didn't happen with reporters or in full public view is fiction. I can even buy the argument in certain scenes. In talking about the Iraq invasion early in the film, he leads a gaggle of advisors down the wrong path. Not exactly the most nuanced writing in the world, but it makes a point. Even later, when Iraq is a seeming success, information on Weapons of Mass Destruction gets brought to his attention, throwing the president into a tizzy. In this scenario, Bush isn't the bad guy; Karl Rove (Toby Jones) and Cheney are the masterminds of the plan, with Rumsfeld bringing the military might. They pull Bush's strings, knowing he blames Saddam Hussein for his father's defeat in 1992.

The fictional Bush and Rove even vocalize the puppet point with Rove indicating he will tell Bush what to say. A pre-president Bush says he will tell Rove what he wants to say; the advisor's job is to make it sound good. However, everyone in the film knows the end score. And it's the final scene which crystallizes this fact beyond anything dialogue can convey. In a way, the story is that of a tragic hero, a man vying for his father's attention after a series of screw-up´s and blunders.

None of the major characters are shielded from being portrayed as incompetent hackjobs. Newton sticks out the most not because of what she's given to do, but how she does it in every single scene. Ask Tina Fey how hard it is to get facial ticks and hand gestures down in an effort to imitate a public figure. Despite not being an exact match for the former National Security Advisor, the film's Rice maintains her plump cheeks, level tone of voice and, most importantly, a seeming eagerness to be commended. She is constantly upbeat regardless of the issues surrounding her, with a gentle, polite manner to her. The rest of the cast work just as well in their parts, especially Dreyfuss as Cheney. Wright is the lone weak link; he doesn't look like the Powell we know, nor does he speak like him. Wright's general is a weak, almost demure man.

From a storytelling perspective, "W." rates a 7 out of 10. As for the veracity of the information presented, I can´t speak to that. Oliver Stone uses broad strokes to create the man. The film isn´t particularly deep or revelatory; but it remains a fascinating glimpse into the man the current president may be.

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