Release Date: October 17, 2008 Studio: Lionsgate MPAA Rating: PG-13 Genre: Comedy •
Drama Director: Oliver Stone Writers: Stanley Weiser Cast: Josh Brolin,Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Richard Dreyfuss, Jeffrey Wright,Thandie Newton,Scott Glenn,Ellen Burstyn, Ioan Gruffudd, Stacy Keach,Colin Hanks, Bruce McGill,Jason Ritter Synopsis: Oliver Stone’s W. tells the unlikely story of Texan George W. Bush, the ne'er do well son of a former CIA Chief/Vice President/President of the United States who somehow manages to get himself elected President of the USA. The Review: "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —President George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
Beginning with the writer’s credit , the director’s credit and Josh Brolin’s credit, we get the title card for W. with a gigantic white W and the accompanying period in red. At this point, I expected the red dot to slide to the right, moving away from the W and then it would zoom in, revealing the inside of a gun barrel like the opening of a James Bond flick, but alas, I was mistaken. Instead, our hero is introduced in the middle of center field at The Ballpark in Arlington, home to the Texas Rangers, a ball club soon to be an important part of this character’s life.
From there, our story jumps around in time and location like Dr. Sam Beckett from “Quantum Leap” with attention deficit disorder to tell the fantastical story of one George W. Bush, a Texan blue-blood who manages to fail his way all the way up to the Oval Office.
I don’t know about y’all, but I’m getting sick of the biopic. And besides, didn’t WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY already do the whole fake biography thing already? Whatever.
The story of George W. is as garish and as unrealistic as Oliver Stone’s dyed eyebrows.
The myth of the American Presidency is that only the best, brightest,boldest and most worthy of all of us fellow Americans can attain the highest of callings—the call to represent this great country in the Oval Office and Hollywood has, before now, upheld this standard.
For many years before seeing W., I’ve marveled at some amazingly cool fictional POTUSes—Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) in DEEP IMPACT, James Marshall (Harrison Ford) in AIR FORCE ONE, THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT’s Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas), and hell, even Bill Pullman as Thomas J. Whitmore roused my long-dormant sense of “international patriotism” with his inspiring speech in INDEPENDENCE DAY, but now W. gives us this doofus ?
Josh Brolin stars as George W. and it’s a weird performance. Literally stumbling through many scenes, Bush is shown to be not the sharpest tool in a very small shed, creating new words for the English language like “misunderestimate”, and coming up with soundbites on a campaign trail like: “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.” Or, much much later in the film, when asked:"how is history likely to judge your Iraq war?" he replies, "History, we don't know. We'll all be dead."
Despite the film’s many laughs, I found myself wondering what kind of film was Mr. Stone attempting here? His last comedy was NATURAL BORN KILLERS and although I saw that film as more of a directorial masturbatory exercise than making any kind of relevant social commentary, I could see the point he was trying to make.
But W.? Is this his attempt at a dark political satire, a kind of cautionary tale like BOB ROBERTS ?
Here’s the movie told in linear fashion for those of you that need it:
STORY PART 1:
George W. Bush goes to Yale and joins their Skull and Bones Society, but he’s spared the worst of their alcohol-fueled homo-erotic hazing rituals because he’s a legacy member: his Dad , George Herbert Walker Bush was in the S&B (and about to run for Congress) and his Grandpa Prescott Bush was also a Yalie (and a Senator, too). Bush gets thrown in jail following a drunken climb up the goal post following a Yale football victory;calls his Dad to bail him out.
W. goes to work in the Texas oil fields, gets fired for drinking. George decides to run for the US Congress over a poker game and plenty of beer.
George meets Laura Welch at a friend’s barbeque and sucessfully flirts with her, despite his inclination to talk with his mouth full of cheeseburger and swig beer like a teenager. George dates Laura. There’s a lot of drinking here, too. George loses the race for Congress—I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure there was booze present in this scene.
I’m not saying that there is a lot of alcoholic consumption in W. but I’m guessing that for the DVD release of W., BestBuy will be offering a airplane's travel sized bottle of Jack Daniels as the pack-in exclusive.
STORY PART 2:
Poppa Bush asks George to help him run for President.
Bush the Elder wins.
George becomes a co-owner of the Texas Rangers baseball club.
George W. becomes the Governor of Texas in 1994.
George quits drinking, joins A.A., finds God.
Another W. DVD exclusive could be a free DVD of the TV movie “ My Name is Bill W.” with James Woods and Jim Garner for the burgeoning recovering alcoholic and/or addict crowds.
STORY PART 3:
During his presidency, Bush the Elder has this great little armed conflict called The Gulf War, and kicks this dictator named Saddam Hussein out of this country called Kuwait (that this guy had invaded) but Bush Sr. stops short of taking Hussein out.
(Pay attention here because this actually becomes relevant later on, or earlier on, in the film).
Poppa Bush loses his re-election bid.
We see nothing of how it happens, but W. becomes the President of the United States (POTUS).
Something awful happens in September 2001.
George W. decides to begin an invasion of Iraq, a country that has nothing to do with the events of September 2001.
Sweet Jebus, is this a dark comedy or an even darker history lesson?
If I wanted to experience something as political as this flick, I would’ve read the news, turned on Walter Cronkite or listened to NPR or done something to pay attention to current events over the last twenty years!
Nevertheless, the supporting cast is brilliant in creating unique and fully realized characters, despite the broad strokes the screenwriter Stanley Weiser is forced to make in the service of telling such an expansive story.
Richard Dreyfuss eats the scenery with gusto as “Dick Cheney”, Papa Bush’s Secretary of Defense, turned CEO of a major defense contractor film who then became George W.’s Vice President, or in Bush’s words: “Vice” and “Veep”. There’s some interesting subtext here as Bush, in one scene, feels he has to remind Cheney who is supposed to be in charge.
I’ve loved Elizabeth Banks, err, admired Elizabeth Banks since she first appeared on my radar as Betty Brandt, J.Jonah Jameson’s assistant in SPIDER-MANs 1,2 &3 and since then she’s been really busy, appearing in “Scrubs”, THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN and most recently she made me laugh in ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO. I never thought I’d feel any sympathy for a First Lady, but it’s to Ms. Banks’ credit that I could see an unspoken despair behind Laura’s bright smile.
The highly awesome James (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL,BABE,STAR TREK:FIRST CONTRACT, SPIDER-MAN 3) Cromwell was actually my biggest disappointment in W. At no point did he attempt any kind of a Texan accent and thus, I never really bought him as George W.’s “Poppy”.
The biggest laughs came at the expense of the lovely Thandie Newton , sporting a Carol Brady flip, as she turned into the arch and smirking “Condoleezza Rice”. What was with her odd voice and posture choices or that scary bobble-head nodding she was doing during some of W.’s meetings?
Showing up for a memorable five minutes, Ioan (THE FANTASTIC FOUR) Gruffudd is “Tony Blair”, the British Prime Minister bullied into backing Bush’s war plans. Nice sweater there, Ioan.
I was most impressed with Jeffrey (“Angels in America” and CASINO ROYALE ) Wright's turn as “Gen. Colin Powell”, another holdover from the previous Bush administration. Wright gets the best lines, trying to tell George W. that they can't find the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq that W. is using as his excuse to invade Iraq and take out Saddam Hussein and that the US should work with, not against, the United Nations, when considering its actions.
W. is bursting to the seams with well-known actors such as Ellen Burstyn, Scott Glenn, (an uncredited—WTF? Colin Hanks, Stacy Keach, Bruce McGill, Rob Corddry,and Jason Ritter. What does Oliver Stone have on these people ? But blackmail is such an ugly word--I prefer extortion.
Now director Stone has never been known to tap down a point when bludgeoning it to death would work just as well, but why does he insist on the following: With George W. and Laura Welch, he pairs an under-read and C student with a woman who has a Bachelor’s degree in Education and a Masters Degree in Library Science.
Funny, but not very. George W. spends the whole film trying to get from under his father’s shadow but picks as his VP a guy who worked for his Dad for four years.
Ohhhkaaay. And, there’s a “ George W. Bush nearly choking on a pretzel scene.” Really. I can’t make this stuff up. Am I supposed to laugh,cry or scream?
STORY PART 4:
W. is finally about George W. the man eventually coming into his own and finding his own way after living beneath the shadow of his father and W.the President, coming up with a justification for invading the sovereign nation of Iraq. We see his senior staff's opinions on the move--Colin Powell for the no vote, Dick Cheney for the "Hell yes" vote (making a persuasive case that Iraq is so oil rich it's in the best interests of the US to occupy, with perhaps some further, future movement into Iran ). We witness the writing of a State of The Union address that would include the facts needed to justify such an action and how those facts had to be vetted by the CIA first. Stone leaves the audience with very realistic-looking war footage showing the human cost of the war and gives us final dream sequence with Poppy Bush, telling how the total cause for the second Gulf War was tied into both of the major storylines.
A good biography for film is a distillation of a life—what was important or skipped over, what could be covered but glossed over, and finding the events and characters that can be combined for dramatic purposes.
Knowing that, as screenwriter Weiser does, I was still left with too many questions, like:
How did W. manage to win his presidency?
What were the events of September 2001 and how did W. and his cabinet react at the time?
The fictional construct of George W. Bush is more complex than I believe the character imagines himself to be. As George lives his life in his father’s long shadow, most of us live our lives in other’s shadows—our parents, our brothers and sisters and even some of us are eclipsed by our children. For the very few that manage to lead our own lives, we can still be trapped by own fears. It’s not easy being a human being is something I’ve been known to say, but even with my empathy, I couldn’t find it in myself to sympathize with W. A not-too-bright, way-too-rich boy fails at nearly everything he does –because he doesn’t try—and he still manages to become President?
No Thanks.
W. the movie is ultimately a scattershot satire at best, as if the filmmakers took the pages of a man’s life, dropped them from a great height, paused to a couple of swigs of Jack Daniels, shot blindly into the whirlwind and then pieced together the papers they had hit.
FILM GEEKZ FUN FACT:
In 1991’s FLIRTING, Thandie Newton’s mother was played by Femi Taylor, who was Oola—Jabba’s green Twi’lek dancing girl/Rancor chow--in RETURN OF THE JEDI! Rating:
