Monday, October 27, 2008

“Donde esta la Cerveza?”

From drunken college frat boy to when he finally admitted there were no WMDs in Iraq, Oliver Stone’s “W” tries really hard to make us believe that all poor George W. Bush ever wanted to do was watch baseball and drink beer all day. Sounds like a reasonable request to me. Then again, this was the starting point to understanding how Bush got into office, why he got into office, and why he never should have gotten into office.

If you are a fan of George W. Bush, you're going to be more fond of him than ever. If you are not a fan of George W. Bush, you're going to be surprised at how sympathetic his character appears. Whatever your political beliefs, you won't find anything unexpected in "W."

I do wish the film would have explored the connection between Bush's alcoholism and his born-again Christianity with some depth or curiosity - what addicts and born-agains share is a terror of ambiguity, an absolute need for a belief system that removes all doubt- but at least the film lets us know the American people made a HUGE mistake.

It’s worth the price of admission just to see Richard Dreyfuss play Dick Cheney. One of the most chilling movie scenes ever is when Cheney is asked about his exit strategy from Iraq - “There is no exit. We stay.” I swear to god, it gave me goose bumps!

Josh Brolin's performance as “W” is really amazing; in fact, Brolin's so good, he almost makes you feel sorry for Bush. Almost. An equally stellar performance by James Cromwell as “Poppy,” George H.W. Bush, Sr., makes me understand why Daddy Bush would rather hang with Bill Clinton these days.

Still, leaving the theater, I had the sense that, really, it is too early for this movie to have been made.

1 comment:

Robert Crane said...

saw w. too and came away with essentially the same kind of hohum feeling (for different reasons). also, dreyfus as cheney was so good i didn't realize it was dreyfus until half way thru. also, i was intrigued by the war room discussion, although how anyone knows what really was said by whom is beyond me (and i don't trust ollie to get it spot on). anyway, my shiver-me-timbers moment was cheney looking at the world map claiming the objective was world domination.

scary grunty stuff.

great review!