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The Vice President of the United States tends to have a pretty low-profile role. He makes some appearances and plays a part in the workings of the government, yet he doesn’t typically get a whole lot of attention. But Adam McKay’s Vice goes behind the scenes to take a look at one who may had more power than most people realized.
Vice follows the political career of former Vice President Dick Cheney (Christian Bale). A troubled young man from Wyoming, Cheney eventually worked his way into politics with plenty of help and encouragement from his ambitious wife, Lynne (Amy Adams). Thanks to some smart connections to powerful figures like Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell), he was able to learn the ropes and quietly rise through the ranks in both the public and private sectors, building relationships that would help him take unprecedented control of the country at a pivotal point in the nation’s history.
Despite the fact that Lynne originally brushes off the vice-presidency as a “nothing job,” McKay spends the film convincing viewers that it was anything but. The young Dick Cheney may come off as an aimless troublemaker, but he quickly makes the rather drastic leap from drunk and directionless youth to clever and conniving politician. While it certainly makes for an intriguing story—the tale of the sinister man behind the curtain—it sometimes seems as though Cheney is given more credit than he deserves.
The storytelling, meanwhile, feels erratic and disjointed. It’s told in fits and starts, with plenty of random snippets thrown in. Granted, the story has to cover half of a century in a couple of hours, so it’s understandable that some parts of the story get little or no coverage. But the choices don’t always make sense, and the effect is sometimes jarring.
At times, though, this peek behind the scenes can be eye-opening or just plain entertaining. And some of the performances—especially Carell as a crafty and outspoken Rumsfeld and Sam Rockwell as a fun-loving but generally oblivious George W. Bush—add to the film’s entertainment value. But it’s not an especially dynamic account, and its tendency to get caught up in a complicated web of political minutia makes it feel much longer than it needs to be.
With its amusing characters and its insider’s look at the political process, Vice is often a witty biography. But the lack of flow and direction in the storytelling takes away from the overall effect.
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