Review of the Oliver Stone film, W.

If you are hoping for an unrelenting, unforgiving, unapologetically scathing indictment of W's administration, then this movie will likely leave you feeling mildly disappointed. If, on the other hand, you're hoping for a film which stands as a glowing review of Bush's performance while in office and a lasting monument to his achievements as a president and an American, then...well I can't begin to conceive of how you could hope for something like that. And this movie will likely leave you feeling much more than mildly disappointed.

Josh Brolin's performance as W is convincing and engaging. He manages to capture that most inexplicable of Bush characteristics -- the down-home charm wrapped in a righteous celebration of willful ignorance. Watching Brolin's portrayal of Bush I found myself asking the same question I've been pondering almost daily for soon-to-be eight long years: How did someone that stupid become that powerful?

Richard Dreyfus also turned in a fantastic (ly creepy) performance as "Vice" Dick Cheney. What makes his portrayal work is that he isn't doing an impersonation; he is just being Cheney. You can feel the greed and deception oozing from his pores. I'm not sure how an actor captures that, but I say Dreyfus did it.

The same cannot be said of many of the other performances. Condie, Rummsey, Wolfie, Brother George -- their characters all felt forced by the actors portraying them. Like when Frank Caliendo goes for an impersonation that's just not quite in his bag of tricks. The mannerisms are all there, but it looks like an impression. You don't see the character because you're too distracted by the person playing the character.

If all else works then a forced impersonation is forgivable. They can't all be as solid as Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin. But in this context the weak impersonations are distracting and ultimately make parts of the movie feel like a too slow SNL skit without a punch line.

Many will say that this is a story about a son's haphazard attempt to please his father and live up to the legacy that was handed to him. To me this is a movie about the corrupting forces of religion, greed, and ignorance and how those forces, and the people corrupted by them, changed the world forever.