W.

A Film By OLIVER STONE

STARRING: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, Richard Dreyfuss, Jeffrey Wright, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Thandie Newton, Ioan Gruffudd

Release date: 7 November 2008
Cert: PG

Running Time: 129 mins

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weELpc3pYMs

A quick look at Oliver Stone’s cv (check it out here http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000231/) will show that he loves a biopic. This one is a tad different though. He usually takes a leader from the past, or Jim Morrison, and tells their story- or a fictionalized version of their story. Here he takes the man who runs the free world until 2009.The present president, George W. Bush.

Stone uses his experience and flexes his storytelling muscles in the early stages of this film. This movie is set around the time of the invasion of Iraq with flash backs to significant periods in Georgie’s life. Stone gets a lot into two scenes during the first of these flashbacks. George is at a fraternity pledge night and gives a potted history of his family’s political influence then impresses the frat boys with some sucking up. The next scene sees W in jail on the phone to his father. We get a sense of the father/son relationship as W smirks to himself while apologizing down the phone to Poppy Bush. At this point it looks like Ollie is back to his best, but his clear distain for Bush soon interrupts his ability to tell a story.

Dylan Moran once said that the problem with anti-Bush people is that they try to tell facts about Bush that will make you hate him more than you already do, and when you inform them that you already know these things; they start making shit up. What Stone does here is take all the stupid things we’ve witnessed W do over the years and tie them together with a load of fiction. All biopics take some liberties with the truth. They have to. This is ridiculous and more than slightly malicious though. There is a scene where Dick Cheney compares the threat of nuclear weapons to poison lettuce to explain to George in a way that is so simplistic a child could understand. George Bush is a real person and this is just some stupid character. Stone even invents dream sequences.

This movie is based on real people but all are depicted as extreme versions of themselves. It looks more like Stone has looked to cartoons than the news for his characters. W is Homer Simpson, Karl Rove is Thumper from Bambi, Tony Blair is Porky Pig, etc, etc.

George Bush Snr is Mustapha from the Lion King. He is depicted as the perfect father. George Jnr looks up to him with dough eyes and the audience is expected to do the same. Snr failed to get reelected as president for several reasons but none of these are explored. He is just portrayed as a brilliant upstanding man who doesn’t know where he went wrong in raising his idiot son. I reckon Stone has a bit of man crush on Snr. It affects his judgement and hurts the film.

Dick Cheney’s character is another extreme one. During the scene where the invasion of Iraq is being planned I was expecting him to strap on an eye-patch, start stroking a cat and saying he wants one million trillion-faffillion barrels of oil. The acting in this movie is hit and miss but Richard Dreyfuss does manage to play this part as subtly as possible considering how broad it has been written.

James Cromwell, Elizabeth Banks, Toby Jones and Jeffrey Wright all come out of this with as much credibility as possible as well. Thandie Newton is bad and can’t blame the unrealistic dialogue. It seems as though at some stage during her research for her role she confused Condaleezza Rice with the wicked witch of the west. You’re just waiting for her to start cackling. She seems horribly out of her depth next to accomplished actors like Dreyfuss and Cromwell.

Josh Brolin, best known for his role as the detective in American Gangster, plays W. For the most part he does a good job but at some points he slips into a version of Will Ferrell’s interpretation of George. He seems to prefer the more tender scenes with Laura Bush who is played by Elizabeth Banks (Scrubs, Zack and Miri Make a Porno). Stone uses the scenes between George and Laura to relieve the tension created in other set ups well. The love story between those two contrasts the hatred the director has for his subject. This is more of the experience mentioned earlier.

Ultimately W. is an exercise in self-indulgence. The subject, the script, the politics, it all just bangs of hatred. This could be seen as a good film in ten years time when Bush’s legacy is not as visible but Stone couldn’t wait until then. He had to take a swipe before Bush leaves office. George Bush is not a popular man. If anything, Stone could cause people to be sympathetic to him by going so over the top in a movie that is blatantly fictitious and vicious.

This is a dramatized lesson in recent history with some laughs and some “awh” moments. Could have been a lot better if the director had kept ego in check.