W

Christopher Hitchens once said that making jokes about George W. Bush - or more specifically, obvious jokes about his allegedly low IQ and obvious verbal inarticularity - is the kind of humor that dumb people laugh at. It's very easy to see the truth behind this statement. When Bush trips over his words during an interview or press conference, it's easy to point and laugh. And everyone does it, to the point that it's tiresome and ridiculous. Not even criticism of Bush's policies, but of Bush himself - and not even Bush himself, but his inarticularity. How clever. Gee, do you pick on the fat kid with a lisp too? Not that Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage and Ann Coulter aren't guilty on this front, but it's no better the other way - our level of political discourse has been largely reduced to playground bullying.

Not that Bush is above ridicule. In spite of my once-rabid Republicanism, like so many Americans I have grown disillusioned with Bush, and think his second term has been nothing less than disastrous. I disagree with those who think he's on the level of James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, and I still think he's absolutely right on the single most important issue of our generation - the War on Terror. But at this point, that's about the extent to which I'm willing to stick up for him.

Which brings us to Oliver Stone's W. For months, Stone has been trying to depict this film as not the expected hatchet-job against an unpopular President, but a reconsideration of a misunderstood man. The director who gave us notoriously-slanted polemics like JFK and Nixon wants us to believe that his portrayal of George W. Bush, one of the most polarizing, controversial Presidents of all time (and one occupying the exact opposite ideological position of Stone) is a balanced, perhaps even sympathetic portrayal. Sorry, Oliver, I ain't buying that for a second. For W embraces the most mean-spirited, broad, simple-minded anti-Bush satire - about the maturity level of a 9th Grader with a Bush is Hitler sticker on their planner - and awkwardly tries to mix it with a character study. The movie has a schizophrenic, uncertain tone throughout; it simply can't decide what it's trying to be. Is it a political drama, a biopic, or a satire? Does it like Bush, at least as a person, or hold him in contempt? The movie can't even answer this question, and right off the bat it's in trouble for being unable to descide.

Let's get straight to business. Perhaps the movie's absolute nadir - a scene which inspired a lengthy and quite awkward bout of laughter in myself, much to the consternation of my fellow movie-goers - is its set-piece debate over the Iraq War. The scene climaxes with Dick Cheney giving a ludicrous speech explaining why the invasion of Iraq is essential to American interests. Guess why? Well, so America can build an Empire in the Middle East, to get at all of the world's Oil, of course - and there's NO EXIT from Iraq either. Not only the idea of that, mind you, but all of those words explicitly stated. How ridiculous and childish can you get? This is nothing more than Stone putting evil words in the mouth of a man he doesn't like. All that's missing is a facial scar, a cat, and perhaps a maniacal laugh, and we've got Blofeld or The Penguin (or Dr. Evil) rambling about his latest plot for world domination. It would be like Rush Limbaugh writing a film about Barack Obama, and giving him a speech where he declares that he despises America and wishes for the deaths of all American soldiers stationed there. It's cheap, it's mean-spirited, and worst of all, it doesn't even work dramatically.

The last bit is the sticking point, not only for that scene but the entire film. If all of this worked on a dramatic level, whether as a serious drama or a satire, I would be much more willing to accomodate its political posturing. Make no mistake: I love movies, TV, and works of fiction that disagree with me if they're done well. The West Wing is one of my favorite TV shows, for just one example. You can also rest assured that Spartacus and Battle of Algiers aren't on my Top 25 list because I'm a fan of Marxism. Even with Stone, I loved JFK as a film, even if it was utter bullshit as history, and Platoon is nothing short of a masterpiece. This, however, is not just a political screed I disagree with vehemently - simply put, it is just poor film making all around. The direction and cinematography are cheap and shoddy, seemingly unable to even stabilize and focus the camera, the art direction on the level of a made-for-TV film (and not a good one, either; the Situation Room of W seems like the set of a high school play compared to the aforementioned TV series' equivalent), Stanley Weister's script awful in its character and plot development and giving us rather bad dialogue in the bargain (the few moments of intentional humor that work are mostly appropriated verbatim from real-life Bush gaffes, which only leads back to my initial point). The musical score blares out a never-ending stream of banal rock and country music, like a second-rate Scorsese film. And dream sequences? Really? It's barely even competent on a technical level, so why am I not surprised at its other aspects being subpar?

More than anything else, though, is the film's portrayal of its subject. It absolutely cannot get a grip on what it wants to say about George W. Bush. Stone seemingly wants to have it both ways, portraying him as both a figure of ridicule and a sympathetic man, well-intentioned but none-too-bright, advanced beyond his station, and manipulated by those around him. The movie shifts between the two extremes almost from scene to scene. If we're ridiculing Bush, then what the hell are with the lengthy and theoretically dramatic scenes with his father, and his tender moments with his wife, trying to contemplate the mess he's dug himself into? If he's a sympathetic character, what the hell is with shaping a three-minute set piece around the infamous pretzel-choking incident? The movie doesn't help matters by skimming over virtually all of Bush's redemption and rise - all we see of his gubernatorial campaign is a now-infamous interview gaffe, and we barely even hear about the whole 2000 election mess - although we do get a nice and lengthy of scene of Bush's boozy frat initiation in college. Nor does the film's Oedipal father-son conflict make much sense - it's poorly constructed and seems absolutely false from beginning to end. So, who is Bush, a clown, a rube, a puppet, a nice guy in over his head, a living illustration of the Peter Principle? Make up your mind and stick to it, Stone. Clearly, you aren't capable of having it both ways.

This is no fault of Josh Brolin. Long a criminally underrated actor, he has finally hit the big time - his quadruple act of No Country For Old Men, American Gangster, In the Valley of Elah and Grindhouse last year is nothing short of astonishing, and he certainly has the chops to be a star if he continues to land the right roles. His impression of Bush is quite good - he's got the demeanor and accent and mannerisms down absolutely pat - but even such a talented actor as Brolin can't keep up with the changing, shifting hologram Bush of the script. I praise Brolin for a job well-done, but unfortunately he was up against an impossible obstacle - an absolutely awful, schizophrenic script that has no idea what it's trying to say.

The supporting cast consists of very good actors trapped in ridiculous parts. All of the characters we've come to know and either love or hate from the nightly news are here, portrayed in the most broad, cartoonish, borderline offensive manner possible. The only two who manage to escape the morass of stereotyping and lazy writing are Jeffrey Wright, who gives us a dignified Colin Powell (perhaps not surprisingly, given that he serves as the mouthpiece for Stone's own views on Iraq), and James Cromwell, giving a strikingly layered and sympathetic performance as H.W. Bush, alternately ashamed and proud of his son, managing to cut straight through the bullshit script and deliver a great performance. Richard Dreyfuss's turn as Cheney has already been noted; he's playing basically the same character as his heinous, evil, maniacally-laughing Republican Senator in The American President, and it's no better here than there (but at least The American President was an excellent movie otherwise). Thandie Newton (Condi Rice), Ioan Gruffud (Tony Blair), Scott Glenn (Donald Rumsfeld), and Toby Jones (Karl Rove) are no better; they're all cartoonish caricatures worthy of a bad Saturday Night Live sketch (a redundancy if there ever was one). Elizabeth Banks is pretty as Laura Bush but she's little more than a background character, while Ellen Burstyn has no room at all to breathe as Barbara Bush (she compensates with some frenetic scenery chewing though). Stacey Keach's cameo is so tiny as to be virtually worthless. Not to blame the actors, though - South Park couldn't make a more cartoonish and ridiculous portrayal of Bush and Co. if they tried.

Finally, I must ask the following question: Who exactly is demanding this film be made? Bush is a joke at this point, a lame duck waiting out the results of the upcoming election. People are simply sick and tired of Bush after eight years, so why did Stone and Co. think that giving them more Bush was a good idea? Perhaps a few months or years down the road, this might have been a good idea, but now, I should think Joe Average would want to see less of Bush, not more. (The movie's mediocre box-office take seems to confirm this) I can see a good movie about Bush being made, for instance, from Bob Woodward's Bush at War trilogy. But this is just bumper-sticker drek that would make Michael Moore and MoveOn.org blush; and Stone, for all his Shakespearean pretensions and protestations of fairness, is doing nothing more than piling on an oft-ridiculed, now-unpopular President who in three months will be out of office, with arguments and insults that were tiresome in 2000 and are simply fetid and rotten now.

W is not a bad film because I disagree with its politics. It's a bad film because it sucks. For this reason, I find it extremely hard to believe that this is the same man who brought us Platoon and JFK. As might be said of both the director and his subject: How the mighty have fallen. The potential was there for something special, but Stone couldn't resist the temptation to grasp at relevance with a subject most people could care less about, and doing it in the most insipid, banal and insulting manner possible. Farewell and adieu, Mr. Stone; you've had your day as America's leading cinematic polemicist. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Rating: 2/10 - Utter Shit