A surprisingly poignant and empathetic treatment of the 43rd President of the United States.
The challenge of making, and releasing, a film about a current sitting President notwithstanding, Oliver Stone takes us on a reasonably successful journey from Bushie's frat house days at Yale to Dubya's decision to go to war in Iraq, all woven together in an intricate series of flashbacks and overlaps, stopping at important touchpoints along the way--college, Texas oil fields, pro baseball, political campaigns successful and otherwise, the governorship, and eventually, The Presidency.
Amazingly, Stone manages to take us inside the finer points of the primary focus of his film, the relationship between George W. Bush and his father, the former president. The study of "Junior" and "Poppy" is the emotional center of the film. Peripheral to it are explorations of other relationships, notably that between members of both Bush administrations, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell.
Artistically, it's admirable. Certain camera shots deserve a second viewing. The soundtrack behind, while not jarring, has moments of great humor (Bush goes from a moment praying, fade to "Spirit in the Sky" in the background). Locations (most of which were shot in Louisiana) are stunning.
The film is well cast, but no performance stands out more than that of Josh Brolin in the lead role. Fresh of the heels of his standout performance in last year's best film, "No Country for Old Men," Brolin embodies Bush 43. In writing and acting that elsewhere would be hyperbole, the performance is perfectly tragicomic.
Richard Dreyfuss is less impressive as Dick Cheney, although he gives enough of the spirit of Cheney to make the point, and there are times when he turns around you actually believe you could be viewing the current Vice President. Scott Glenn is a serviceable, but stumbling, Donald Rumsfeld. Jeffrey Wright is so-so as Colin Powell, but the performance of Condoleeza Rice borders on disturbing, in a parrotty, lapdog sort of way. I actually thought in some of those shots I was looking at Secretary Rice herself, and had to investigate who was playing the role (discovering it was Thandie Newton, so brilliant in "Crash," was a fascinating surprise). Toby Jones as a very short Karl Rove seemed too much the court jester in many of his scenes. A surprising performance is turned in by Stacy Keach as "Earle Hudd," a composite character based on a number of evangelists and spiritual advisors in Bush's life.
Well known character actor James Cromwell brings enough of Bush 41 to the role to make it believable, and Ellen Burstyn is fine, but not overwhelmingly so, as Barbara Bush. Cromwell's Bush Sr. is brooding, introspective, and highly judgmental, key to understanding the motivation behind the son, and the central conflict in the film, the invasion of Iraq. His inability to truly connect with his son after years of disapproval climaxes in an indelicate scene where he gives his most treasured possession, cufflinks from his father, Prescott Bush, to George Jr. He wants to intercede as he sees his son go off to finish a war he never did, but keeps his distance except in Junior's troubled dreams.
Elizabeth Banks is charming as Laura Bush; the scene of their first meeting at a backyard barbeque is one of the more charming, and disarming, moments of the film.
Bush's journey through excess and desire for his parents' approval, his quitting drinking, his religious "conversion" and various self-professed epiphanies (in a desire to never be "out Texased" or "out Christianed" again), are all covered here in surprising detail for a 129 minute film without seeming scant or tedious.
W. starts and ends, fittingly, in fantasy sequences on a baseball field. The journey in between is worth taking, and gives us more insight into the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue than we might have gotten in eight years of sound bites. While it is neither Oliver Stone's best film nor his worst, it's a well done, artistically successful and intriguing portrait of an unlikely leader of the free world.
One might well wonder whether Dubya himself would enjoy Stone's interpretation of him. I believe, pretzels, O'Douls and Barney in tow, he would.
