W

Too early or too late? Is it possible to make a good film about a story that still has roughly 70 days to run? Well, judging from Oliver Stone’s latest movie ‘W‘ I’m afraid the answer is a resounding ‘NO’ as this biopic on the life and times of the current inhabitant of the White House is a failure on almost every level. The reviews I’d already heard and read had already painted the picture of an unimpressive piece of work so my anticipation levels were low, quite how far off the mark this film is was really quite disappointing.

The film is of course the life story of George W Bush, taking us from his early hazing days at Yale through to his twenties boozing and brawling period in Texas, his initial attempts at political office and final achievement of the position of most powerful man in the world. The film flits around this history whilst also covering his period in office, concentrating mostly on the run up and invasion of Iraq, all of this conducted under the shadow of his father and his constant need for validation and attempts to impress the old man. In this Stone has framed the film as a sort of modern day Shakespeare play and this I think is the critical factor that deflates and undermines the whole films’ premise and delivery.  

In the interests of full disclosure let me be clear on where I stand on Bush and the whole Neo-Conservative project. They are poisonous, traitorous evil fucking scum who have the blood of hundreds of thousands of people on their hands. They are the chief architects of the majority of the worlds most cataclysmic events over the past decade and are the authors of the next decades most pressing problems. They are torturers. They are war-profiteers. They sneer at and violate international law. They have lied, they have cheated, they are thieves and they are murderers. Yes, I guess you could say I’m a little to the left on the political spectrum on this one. This however does not mean I was expecting nor wanted a simple hatchet job on the man, the facts are well established on what happened and what occurred over the past eight years so I welcomed the news that Stone and Brolin wanted to ‘humanise’ GWB, an approach far more interesting and possibly rewarding since all we’ve really seen of Bush is either right wing ‘Starship Troopers‘ style right-wing support on the likes of Fox News or crude caricatures of his stupidity and ineptness. I don’t think anyone who manages to reach such public office can ever be that stupid – not even I’m that cynical – thus the major problem with this film is that it can’t decide what it wants to be, either a broad satire (it does have a few laughs in it) or serious reportage. Being neither it falls into a limbo of timidity that fails to either humanise or understand the man apart from leaving you with Stone’s bludgeoned message that all he wanted was to be admired by and gain the respect of his father. It doesn’t wash. 

The other major problem is what it doesn’t cover, a complete absence of some of the most defining moments of his Presidency from the vote rigging controversy in 2000, 9/11 is mentioned only in retrospect during the Iraq discussions which is just an unbelievable omission given that it was essentially the catalyst of everything that followed and not one single, solitary mention is made of Katrina. It’s like a bio-pic of Churchill without the Second World War, Castro without the Cuban missile crisis or Regan without covering the making of ‘Bedtime For Bonzo‘. One thing it does have is a fine impression from Josh Brolin which almost makes it worth two hours of your time. He submerges himself in the role unlike the others (Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney, Thandie Newton as Rice, Jeffery Wright as Powell, Scott Glen as Rumsfeld and Toby McGuire as Rove amongst others) whom you look at and just think ‘that’s Dreyfuss doing a Cheney impression’. Thandie Newton I’m sorry to say in particular looks like she’s escaped from a Rory Bremner sketch. Stone only nails the real story here in one scene when Bush visits gruesomely injured soldiers from Iraq and ineptly attempts to communicate his gratitude of their terrible sacrifices. Uncomfortable and uncertain, he desperately tries to raise their spirits with his usual folksy charm and their attempts to rise and salute their president – that is to say the President as a concept not the man himself – is a great scene that speaks volumes. Pure conjecture here but I think Stone didn’t really go for the jugular as he thought it may back-fire on the election with the usual absurd ‘liberal media elite’ claims zeroing in on the film. That’s quite an arrogant approach I think, there’s a great film waiting to be made about Bush’s life and Presidency but this sure as hell ain’t it. It’s a shame, as I’ve mentioned before I’m an Oliver Stone fan and very much enjoyed his earlier presidential movie ‘Nixon‘ which like ‘W’ followed a humanizing approach and wasn’t the anticipation evisceration of the myth yet that worked as a film, as a examination of the man behind the myth and public persona. 

When it comes to political films I find myself struggling to think of many I really like apart from this and this and of course this (unless you count the likes of ‘Kane‘ or ‘Reds‘ as political film) so I’ll just close this post with a link to some incredible and revealing behind the scenes photos from Tuesday night and a lengthy series of articles covering the entire 2008 campaign from behind the scenes of both campaigns, if you’re in any way a fan of ‘The West Wing’ it’s essential and fascinating reading. It was all embargoed until after the election so its exceptionally revealing on how Palin and McCain loathed each other, exactly how the Obama campaign outfoxed Clinton and exactly how a modern political campaign is conducted in the era of twitter, blogging and 24 hour saturation global news. Here’s to the future.

~ by mintyblonde on November 8, 2008.