by Morgan P Salvo
At first I thought I was watching a trick movie. This is no scathing statement on the evils of the Bush administration, nor does it take a feel-good pro-Bush stance. W. paints an unflattering yet surprisingly sympathetic picture of George W. Bush. And even more surprising is it’s directed by Oliver Stone. Where’s the conspiracy theory? I get the distinct impression he doesn’t want to kick a dead horse when it’s down.
Stone has stated in recent interviews that he didn’t want to go for the jugular. Although he found while making this movie that GW was completely unfit to be president, he also determined that he’s not such a bad guy. And so it goes in this saga of W (Josh Brolin). We get to see the early days in a fraternity showcasing his penchant of calling everyone by nick names, his years of heavy drinking and carousing, his stammering courtship of Laura Bush (Elizabeth Banks), his relationship with his pastor (a big and beefy Stacy Keach) and his subsequent switch from booze to born again. But the main crux of the movie is his relationship with “Poppy”, aka Bush senior (James Cromwell) and his inability to please him. It’s the age old oedipal story. After dodging all responsibility and labor, W. still wants to please his Dad and finds God in the process. In essence he spends the rest of the movie trying to please both of his fathers: the biological and the heavenly one.
Members of the administration are depicted in almost cartoon fashion, and the people we know to be the most influential, Karl Rove (Toby Jones) and Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss), come off as sidekicks. Through subtlety we see the conniving Rove’s influence and Cheney’s slick methods of managing the President, despite Bush’s insistence, “Hey now remember, I tell you what to do—I’m the decider.” Cheney commands the stage in a political meeting that refers to the power of owning the world through obtaining oil. This is the closest to scary this movie gets.The acting is all good with the exception of Scott Glenn (who’s never impressed me) as Rumsfeld, who just glosses over his lines. Brolin has Bush down to a science but there are times when it only resembles a comedic impersonation. After 8 years it’s difficult to watch a portrayal of Bush and not know what’s coming: the smirk, the chortle, the deer in the headlights look – and its all there, though I did notice that this W. was remarkably able to complete his sentences. Dreyfuss absolutely embodies Cheney, dodging their real life size difference by leaning and peering in from the background.
I’m most curious about the timing of this release. Anyone on the planet knows these characters, but to tell their story now implies that it will reveal some kind of conspiracy, crime or deception relevant to the election. I was ready to see a story of evil men manipulating a moron puppet president, but it’s much more understated than that. It’s downright humorous to see the formulation of the term “axis of evil”. It’s like Stone held back and let us see (like flies on the wall) how messed up things get behind closed doors”—it’s frighteningly civil.
By the end of the film you will not have learned anything new, though you just might have a different opinion of W. This movie is a tragedy of an unlovable loser who just wants to earn his daddy’s appreciation but doesn’t want to do anything for it. The movie reads as fiction but then again unfortunately doesn’t W’ years as president? With the constant barrage from the real Bush administration and its innumerable blunders in the world today it’s hard to stomach a softer kinder version of the saga of GW. It will not elicit votes for or against any party currently running. W. shows that Bush came into this presidency scathed and bewildered and most likely will leave that way too. Focusing on a sitting President with the lowest approval rating ever, W. comes off like old news not fit to print.
W.
Starring Josh Brolin, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn, Elizabeth Banks, Richard Dreyfuss
Dir: Oliver Stone
2 stars
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