Someone put Condoleezza Rice back in her cage!!!

The title of this blog might be inappropriate I'm not sure, I don't mean any disrespect to the real Condoleezza Rice, in fact during this review it's best to keep my opinions of the current Administration to a minimum. The title of this blog was not meant for Condoleezza Rice the person but rather the grotesque caricature depicted by Thandie Newton directed as such by Oliver Stone, a sometimes great director who usually fills his films with big, unsubtle intentions.

Oliver Stone's "W." is a "Biography" of the current President and so I can get this out of the way the single worst President there has ever been, (just so we're clear on my opinion before you continue reading). Oliver Stone has said pretty much the same thing in interviews he has given for the film, but he has also stated that this film is an attempt to empathize with this man, which is pretty much the opposite of what I felt. "W" at times plays as an exploitative television Movie of the Week which might not be too hard to swallow if you take into consideration the film was rushed in order to make a pre-election release. If Stone felt this film might change any one's opinion of Bush he would be wrong, it doesn't matter if you agreed with Bush or not, this film plays like one more kick in the ass before he leaves office.

"W" begins with Bush in the early years as a beer loving frat boy who gets in trouble with the law and suffers some serious daddy issues. Stone dramatizes these very stylistically and in his usual way very grotesquely, the frenzied hand held camera in these early scenes make it seem like a surreal family circus. Of course Stone as a realist would be down right boring, however that is exactly what these intimate scenes need.

Soon Bush has aspirations to run for Governor where he meets his future wife Laura, and in their first encounter which might've been played romantically, Stone instead shows Bush acting rather rude and redneck scarfing down a burger, we are left to wonder what Laura ever saw in him. Stone doesn't stop to think about this, we are soon taken to the White House years which seem to be the scenes where Stone seems to shine.

The two best scenes in this film happen in the War Room with the administration where we see actors portraying the familiar faces of Donald Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn), Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss), Colin Powell (Jeffery Wright) etc. They aren't playing characters so much as the liberal mind of who they are, but perhaps that is the best way to depict them in this kind of film, in fact it seems the whole film has been leading up to the point where they decide to declare war on Iraq. Stone revels in this scene, it is like a morality play, but curiously Bush is put into the background as Cheney and Powell take the spotlight. This scene by itself is a great Stone scene, and shows off his passion as a liberal filmmaker the best, it's almost worth the price of admission.

As Bush Josh Brolin gives a capable performance and I believe if he was directed differently he would be able to humanize the man better, but it does come close to just an impression, I felt wrong watching his performance with shades of Will Farrell popping up, I wouldn't say it's a complete performance, it's mannered and comes off more as an imitation. The other major imitation perhaps more so is Newton as Rice which just serves as a distraction, she is played for complete laughs and I don't see how we can come to empathize with any of these people if they are not fleshed out as complete characters.

I was mostly impressed by James Cromwell as Bush Sr. and Wright as Colin Powell, you get the feeling that Stone did feel these were the smartest guys in the room and deserved a certain amount of respect. Dreyfuss as Cheney and the wonderful Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush also stand out but again they weren't given much.

What was Stone going for? If he was going for empathy I'd say this was a failure, if he was going for unsubtle satire, then I would say he partly succeeded. The film left me unsatisfied, in fact I was angry, I wanted to see Bush as a human being and what I got was a circus freak, I don't blame Stone in his contempt for this man, like everyone he has seen Bush's legacy and it's not pretty, perhaps his anger clouded his judgement, or perhaps he needed more time to pass to make this guy look more human.

2 stars out of 4