Review: W. (2008)
Jerry Saravia
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: Three stars
Oliver Stone's "W." is his least angry film to date. The reason I say
"least angry" is because if nothing else, the country grew to be
angrily anti-Bush since the Iraq War began (in fact, this country
might be angrier than Stone in the last eight years). Bush has been
seen as a warmonger and an unintelligent dullard who couldn't speak in
complete sentences, couldn't give an interview worth a damn, and was
contradicting himself from one day to the next in all of his press
conferences (he once told an interviewer that he felt the war in
terror couldn't be won, and then the Republicans came out saying he
didn't mean it). I think few can argue with Bush's lack of presence of
mind and, as protracted and silly as some elements of the film are,
"W." is occasionally a breathless bio of Dubya, though nowhere near as
powerful or incendiary as Stone's own "Nixon," easily one of the great
political biographies ever.
Josh Brolin is Dubya, from his Yale days as a heavy drinker and
fraternity pleaser, to his failure at holding numerous jobs that his
father, the strict Bush Sr. (James Cromwell), helps him get including
an oil rig, a baseball team owner, to his days as a Governor of Texas,
and finally as the 43rd President of the United States. The movie
adopts a non-linear narrative as we sense Bush can't seem to do
anything right. That is until he quits drinking, helps his father win
the Gulf War (with some added help from Karl Rove, a historical
revision considering Rove was fired by George H.W. Bush's campaign for
leaking a negative story about a fundraiser chief), and finally sees
it as a message from God to be President. Dubya's mission is to go to
Iraq after 9/11 because some connection is established between Sadaam
Hussein and the Al-Quaeda terrorist group. But is he merely exploiting
his father's legacy with Iraq or trying to prove to his father that he
can succeed as something, like being President of the U.S.! He can't
hack it as Governor, an oil rig worker or anything else and he seems
to ease into his presidency with lots of help. Oh, the irony, the
Freudian irony.
Stone and his screenwriter Stanley Weiser ("Wall Street") have used
several books on Bush to adapt the life of what some regard as the
worst U.S. President in history (some historians point to Harry S.
Truman or Herbert Hoover as infinitely worse). Stone doesn't seem to
hold any one opinion on Dubya at all - he basically presents us with
this Alfred E. Newman-type and consciously doesn't want us, the
voters, to repeat the same mistake again. As expected from Stone,
especially after "Nixon," the movie assumes empathy and a degree with
sympathy for someone who has abused his power to perform historical
actions, like a pre-emptive war strike, taking away liberties from its
own citizens in the interests of a "Patriot Act," and so on. Clearly,
if you have lived through the last eight Bush years, you know what to
expect from Stone's film. Building on the humanity of the man, Josh
Brolin is so brilliant as Bush Jr. (encompassing virtually every frame
of the film) that it is hard to resist the film, despite a drawn-out
narrative, which includes AA meetings with an Evangelical Reverend
(powerfully played by Stacy Keach) and one too many conversations with
George Sr. The movie aims for a more Freudian subtext than needed,
something that "Nixon" only flirted with. In "Nixon," we saw a more
full-bodied portrait of the man behind the President, in addition to
the media outcry, the war protests (Vietnam then) and a three-
dimensional relationship between Nixon and his wife, Pat. "W." only
seems fit to skirt the characters and the political turmoil rather
than embody them. More of Laura Bush enabling Dubya would've been
nice.
Speaking of, "W.'s" most involving scenes feature young Bush's romance
with Laura Bush (a dynamic Elizabeth Banks) as they work together
during his early campaigning for Governor of Texas (we see that Bush
Jr. is more willing to punch below the belt than his father,
particularly when attacking the late Ann Richards). And though many
know what led to the Iraq War, Stone knows how to thrillingly stage
scenes in the War Room as all the Bush administration figures gather
to make this war possible, and to resist ending it. Interestingly, it
shows Bush is not paid attention to and implicitly exists as some sort
of patsy where all the blame can be laid on this dullard without
question. Also worth noting is that the film sees Condoleeza Rice
(Thandie Newton in a strangely mannered performance) as a stick figure
with nothing to offer and Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright) as a
disgruntled general whose past experiences apparently mean very little
(a heated exchanged between Powell and Scott Glenn's Donald Rumsfeld
will make one chuckle). Added to that is a sneeringly evil and
charismatic Dick Cheney (astoundingly played by Richard Dreyfuss, who
deserved an Oscar nomination) and a subdued evil presence in subtle
strokes by Toby Jones as Karl Rove, the Deputy Chief of Staff, the
manipulator behind the scenes who teaches Bush how to address the
press during Bush's first run for governor.
"W." is one of Ollie Stone's mellower films and gives Dubya the
benefit of the doubt (Stone insists that he stopped hating Bush after
2004). The film does not give an endorsement of Bush's policies nor
does it completely condemn them. It states that Bush became a man and
showed his dad that he could rise as a leader, and not be seen as the
black sheep of the family. Ironically, it also shows he failed despite
succeeding. A fascinating and flawed portrait with Josh Brolin giving
Bush a strong measure of humanity, but this W is still no Tricky
Dick.
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