Lousy film from Oliver Stone. He can't decide whether he's making a serious film about the War on Terror, or a satiric comedy about a well-meaning bumpkin who finds himself in the White House and does a mess of things. The actors aren't sure how to play their roles neither. The only exception is Richard Dreyfuss, whose incredible tour-de-force performance as Dick Cheney definitely deserved a best supporting actor nod. His "Drain the swamp", "Nobody will fuck with us again" and "There is no exit strategy, we stay" speeches are the highlights of the movie and can be applauded as rare instances of coherence and straight talk in an otherwise politically-confused farce. Thandie Newton creates a memorable (though crude and vicious) caricature of Condi Rice, but other SNL-ish imitations are completely off the mark (particularly Scott Glenn's inept attempt to re-create Donald Rumsfeld and Jeffrey Wright's pathetic stab at Colin Powell). Toby Jones does only a so-so job as Karl Rove, Ellen Burstyn is a very imperfect Barbara Bush and Josh Brolin's W is very disappointing (as is Elizabeth Banks' Laura Bush). Compared to them, James Cromwell's Herbert Walker Bush is actually quite good, but like Dreyfuss, he apparently didn't get the same stage directions as others, and looks like a serious thespian playing Hamlet or King Lear with a troupe of commedia dell'arte clowns. The film also suffers from omitting many important events of Bush's life (like the Florida recount, 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and Bush's victory over Kerry).
January 1, 2008
W. (2008) *
Lousy film from Oliver Stone. He can't decide whether he's making a serious film about the War on Terror, or a satiric comedy about a well-meaning bumpkin who finds himself in the White House and does a mess of things. The actors aren't sure how to play their roles neither. The only exception is Richard Dreyfuss, whose incredible tour-de-force performance as Dick Cheney definitely deserved a best supporting actor nod. His "Drain the swamp", "Nobody will fuck with us again" and "There is no exit strategy, we stay" speeches are the highlights of the movie and can be applauded as rare instances of coherence and straight talk in an otherwise politically-confused farce. Thandie Newton creates a memorable (though crude and vicious) caricature of Condi Rice, but other SNL-ish imitations are completely off the mark (particularly Scott Glenn's inept attempt to re-create Donald Rumsfeld and Jeffrey Wright's pathetic stab at Colin Powell). Toby Jones does only a so-so job as Karl Rove, Ellen Burstyn is a very imperfect Barbara Bush and Josh Brolin's W is very disappointing (as is Elizabeth Banks' Laura Bush). Compared to them, James Cromwell's Herbert Walker Bush is actually quite good, but like Dreyfuss, he apparently didn't get the same stage directions as others, and looks like a serious thespian playing Hamlet or King Lear with a troupe of commedia dell'arte clowns. The film also suffers from omitting many important events of Bush's life (like the Florida recount, 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and Bush's victory over Kerry).
