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Blu-Ray review: 'W.'
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W./2008
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Starring: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, Ellen Burstyn, James Cromwell, Richard Dreyfuss, Scott Glenn and Mrs. Thandie ever-sucking Newton...
The Plot: This is tragic-figure storytelling of one of History's more infamous Presidents. George W. Bush. Filtered through the lens of one of Hollywood's more libertine filmmakers. Oliver Stone. Two giants collide, but seemingly neither actually walk away a winner.
The Good: Josh Brolin, Josh Brolin, Josh Brolin. My gods, (as they say in the Cylon killing biz) Josh Brolin certainly has hit his gawdamn pace as far as being an actor of amazing chops and competence. I doubt Oliver Stone would even have a movie here worth viewing or returning to if it wasn't for Brolin's eerily authentic mimicry of America's 43rd sitting President. This performance is the only reason I'd ever recommend this film to anyone - you included. The rest of the movie however....
The Bad: Oliver Stone, ever the blowhard's blowhard, is still as drunk as he ever was on his own rare brand of political indoctrination. I know that a movie about George W. Bush could have been a really poignant, provocative, or at the very least interesting film. Under Stone's watch it becomes a two hour Saturday Night Live sketch without the comedy. Sort of like those last two SNL sketches that close the show every weekend. The sketches we're too tired to care or laugh about - yet we're planted in front of them just to stave off precious sleep for ten more minutes.
Stone paints Bush with two different brushes and still manages to create a one dimensional clone of this country's former President. Brolin's impersonation may be spot-on - but that doesn't mean that W. comes out as a fully fleshed out historical figure. What he does come off as is the impossible mix of international bully and master Oval Office tactician, all the while being a big, dumb, thug-puppet to the powers set on using him to frak the world over for personal benefit. (IE Dick Cheney, who's big screen incarnation in this flick - played by Richard Dreyfuss - is much more Lon Chaney than Dick Cheney...)
W.'s a movie for self-interested politicos who laugh at the buffoon running the country, yet at the same time credit the guy with a criminal suaveness that would make Professor Moriarty green with bloody envy. Has one man ever been accredited with as much criminal conspiracy and general village idiocy as George Walker Bush? Am I the only one who thinks the two are mutually exclusive?
Whatever the case just prepare yourself for Stone's version of the former leader of the free-world. Bush chews food with his mouth open, drinks like a freighter captain, gets lost mentally and physically when leading a group of his political henchmen on a tour of his ranch, and gives everyone in his cabinet nicknames that would keep the TV series The Little Rascals running strong on character monikers long into the 21st century.
In his director's commentary Oliver compares George to everyone from Nero, to John Wayne, to Napoleon. (Dynamite or Bonaparte?) It's still just as hard as it ever was listening to Oliver comment on his own grade of art. Your home surround sound system may not be able to handle the volume of hot air blowing through its speakers...
The Ugly: Thandie Newton puts on one of her more unintentionally hysterical performances as Condoleezza Rice. Newton's obviously outmatched herself in this role. It's rare to see a performance this lampoonish in a serious political drama. I've never liked Thandie as an Actress. Along with Brendan Fraser she's one of film-casting's bigger career mysteries. In W. she puts on a performance that makes Jar-Jar Binks feel like a breath of fresh Gungan air...
The rest of the cast, save Brolin,Banks and Dreyfuss, is completely out of place and miscast in this film. I'm a huge James Cromwell fan, and in no way did he ever look, sound, or feel like George Bush Sr. to me. Scott Glenn was a horrible choice to play Donald Rumsfeld, as was Ellen Burstyn playing Barbara Bush. When you first see this troupe of actors in their perspective roles, the SNL feeling really takes hold. Which lends itself to the mystery of Oliver Stone's original concept for this film. Was he being serious, or parodic? I still don't know.
The Verdict: W. stands for "watchable" - but only because it's so "too soon" it lies somewhere between the border of surreal and caricature. For the most part it feels like a dangerously unfunny joke with a collection of notably good actors dressing up to play White House with each other. Josh Brolin's performance however, does deserve special attention.
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