Recently I watched the new Oliver Stone political dramedy, “W.” It included a stellar cast with most notably Josh Brolin (“No Country For Old Men”) as George W. Bush, Elizabeth Banks (“The 40 Year Old Virgin”) as Laura Bush, and Richard Dreyfuss (“Jaws”) as Dick Cheney. I was very impressed with these casting choices. Brolin is flawless in his portrayal and yet gives the character a fleshed out persona that doesn’t feel cheapened by any preconceived expectations. He is probably the highlight of the film.
However, that should not detract from the storyline and writing, which seem to give each other validity, and when these are coupled with the fine acting, it makes for an engaging and highly entertaining film.
Overall, “W.” is a good film, yet, as it went on, I found myself being sucked into another dimension where I had never heard of George W. Bush, and the last eight years of his presidency never happened. It was a world of fiction.
Instead, I was watching a man with very human problems, like alcoholism and struggling to meet his father’s expectations, which would have made for a good drama in any storyline. Oliver Stone shined in separating the man from a popular opinion.
As the movie ended, I was jostled back into reality, and I wondered what the point of the film was. I came to the realization that the plot could have applied to anyone and the status of president was irrelevant. Aside from a peppering of real world references like the “I am the decider” or the trademark Oliver Stone paranoia manifested in Dick Cheney’s war room neoconservative occupancy speech, I felt that the use of George W. Bush as subject in a loosely biographical sense was more of a gimmick than a real interesting aspect to the story.
Maybe that was Oliver Stone’s point, that our President is human and imperfect and probably not a bad guy. Yet, as I watched the story of young Bush’s college years, his early career, his romance with Laura, his eventual rise to be President, and a brief mentioning of the two mishandled wars, I had to ask myself what about everything else?