'W.' - A life worth examining

October 21, 9:52 PMDC New Movies ExaminerLaura Ballou

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 Josh Brolin as George W. Bush

 W. is Oliver Stone’s third attempt on capturing the life of a President. If you’re expecting to see another JFK or Nixon, think again. Maybe because W. began shooting in May of this year and was immediately released in October. It has that fast shooting, fast editing, feel of a reality TV show with the satirical slant of Saturday Night Live all rolled into one. I’ve never seen Thandie Newton before in a movie, but Saturday Night Live needs to hire her for her caricature of Condoleezza Rice. I had to remind myself several times that it wasn’t ole Condi. Wait, was Tina Fey playing  Sarah Palin? …Nevermind.

Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser reunite (They worked together before on Wall Street with Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen.) to direct us through a series of flashbacks and flash forwards from George Bush’s early years and onto the events leading to the Iraq War. The phenomenal performances of Josh Brolin (George W. Bush) and James Cromwell (George Bush Senior) took liberties on capturing the complex relationship between father and son. The ensemble cast of Scott Glenn (Donald Rumsfeld), Ioan Gruffudd (Tony Blair), Elizabeth Banks (Laura Bush), and Toby Jones (Karl Rove) added to the surrealism of seeing recent national events being portrayed on screen.

W. is too close to reality. Unlike JFK and Nixon, George W. Bush is still in office, so it hits a little closer to home. We do not yet have the vantage point of history behind us. We are still raw from seven years of war and a crumbling economy with a solution seeming more distant than ever. We may find ourselves caught in the hilarity of what George W. Bush has actually said, but in that laughter underlies something else. A timorous realization that as a nation we elected him twice. Is the joke really on us?

For more info:  http://wthefilm.com/index2.html