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If there’s a conspiracy theory…or a scandal…or some other kind of controversy to exploit, you can rest assured that Oliver Stone will be there to make a movie about it. He’ll take the story, create his own theories, and rewrite the facts. Then he’ll yammer on about it all ad nauseam.
In case you’ve somehow managed to avoid the hype surrounding Stone’s latest movie, W. is the story of our current president, George W. Bush (Josh Brolin). Determined to release the movie in theaters before this year’s election (I guess no one bothered to tell him that Bush couldn’t run for another term), Stone rushed through the process—a fact that’s painfully obvious through the entire film.
The story skips around for no apparent reason. Though the focus seems to be somewhere between 2002 and 2004, it frequently flashes back, looking at Bush’s days at Yale (when he was apparently the oldest-looking frat boy ever), his carousing and alcoholism, his numerous failed careers, and his strained relationship with his parents. There’s also a random scene involving Bush choking on his evening snack.
For the most part, Bush is portrayed as an incredibly charming idiot with serious daddy issues. He’s the lazy, hard-partying product of a tough, hard-working father (played by James Cromwell), who alternately babies him and belittles him. Though he’s supposed to be running the country, all W. really cares about is baseball. And while he appears to mean well, he’s completely naïve—a fact that his wily advisors frequently use to their own war-mongering advantage.
Technically, W. is supposed to be a drama—but it comes off as a mix between a bad small-town community theater production (think Red, White, and Blaine from Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman) and a very, very long SNL sketch (but not from one of the good seasons). It’s corny and overdone, and it’s filled with unnecessary scenes and pointless chatter.
Though Brolin is surprisingly strong in his role (especially considering the horrible material he had to work with), most of the cast seems to see the movie for what it really is: a painfully long and drawn-out joke. And they act accordingly, often giving absolutely dreadful performances—most notably Thandie Newton, who plays Condoleezza Rice like something out of a circus sideshow.
But perhaps W.’s worst offense is that it’s just plain dull. I expected more from Stone—more scandalous surprises, more wacky, Bush-butted gags, and definitely more cockamamie theories, thrown in for the sake of stirring up a little controversy. But it seems as though Stone was so set on releasing a pre-election movie about Bush that he forgot to make it interesting.
So although Bush’s supporters definitely won’t be happy about W., the only thing that’s truly offensive about this film is how poorly it was done.
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