W. is an interesting film. Not thought provoking. Not emotionally stimulating. Just… interesting. I’m not quite sure what it is, but it just manages to not be enthralling. It’s a biopic about one of the most opinion invoking political figures of our time (go ahead ask somebody how they feel about Bush, I’m pretty sure they’re going to have a strong opinion), that just manages to be flat and tiring.
The movie is about the 43rd president of the United States of America, George Walker Bush (grey haired fella, squints a lot, current leader of our nation), focusing primarily on the Iraq War, his difficulty finding meaningful work after graduation, his alcohol abuse, and most importantly his tumultuous bond with his father and living up to his expectations.
I think it’s the editing and pacing of the movie that throws it for me. The film keeps moving throughout Bush’s life, skipping around from his presidency, to his college days, to his various jobs, to his attempts at running for office. Obviously these skips are supposed to be unified in dealing Bush’s main struggle: his relationship with his father. Still, maybe because this struggle never really captivated me, the whole movie feels disjointed. Without a proper singular narrative thread the film just sat there and played itself out. It never drew me in. It never popped out to excite me. Which is interesting for an Oliver Stone flick as he’s always been great at making pseudo-good flicks that were at the very least entertaining.
Like the movie, performance wise nothing really jumped out at me. Everyone does fantastic jobs at emulating their respective real world counterparts, going beyond doing a simple impersonation. They all went deeper than just imitating voice and mannerisms, making them real characters. Now obviously this shows brilliant skill from the thespians, but still no one performance ever grabbed you. Jeffrey Wright (Colin Powell) and Richard Dreyfuss (Dick Cheney) get close. As does the incomparable James Cromwell (George H.W. Bush), but that may be because he never really tried to impersonate George Bush Sr. and solely acted. Even Josh Brolin doesn’t amaze, and he was fantastic as the president. I realize how contradictory that sounds, but that’s just how this movie is. It could be that these characters never have any really big moments where they can emote where someone starts yelling or crying or whatever, and all the performances have to rely on subtlety. And the nuances were great; they just didn’t lead anywhere. But the entire movie seemed to follow that pattern: a whole lot of well done nothing. And well done nothing is still nothing (besides I like my nothing medium-rare; that's right I just made that joke).
Maybe I was looking for it to be a more interesting character study of our President, or maybe I was looking for a little more perspective historically speaking. Oliver Stone really dropped the ball in the shower with this one. Whatever it was W. was a lackluster look at this man we call Big Papa Smurf (well I’m sure someone does).
The movie is about the 43rd president of the United States of America, George Walker Bush (grey haired fella, squints a lot, current leader of our nation), focusing primarily on the Iraq War, his difficulty finding meaningful work after graduation, his alcohol abuse, and most importantly his tumultuous bond with his father and living up to his expectations.
I think it’s the editing and pacing of the movie that throws it for me. The film keeps moving throughout Bush’s life, skipping around from his presidency, to his college days, to his various jobs, to his attempts at running for office. Obviously these skips are supposed to be unified in dealing Bush’s main struggle: his relationship with his father. Still, maybe because this struggle never really captivated me, the whole movie feels disjointed. Without a proper singular narrative thread the film just sat there and played itself out. It never drew me in. It never popped out to excite me. Which is interesting for an Oliver Stone flick as he’s always been great at making pseudo-good flicks that were at the very least entertaining.
Like the movie, performance wise nothing really jumped out at me. Everyone does fantastic jobs at emulating their respective real world counterparts, going beyond doing a simple impersonation. They all went deeper than just imitating voice and mannerisms, making them real characters. Now obviously this shows brilliant skill from the thespians, but still no one performance ever grabbed you. Jeffrey Wright (Colin Powell) and Richard Dreyfuss (Dick Cheney) get close. As does the incomparable James Cromwell (George H.W. Bush), but that may be because he never really tried to impersonate George Bush Sr. and solely acted. Even Josh Brolin doesn’t amaze, and he was fantastic as the president. I realize how contradictory that sounds, but that’s just how this movie is. It could be that these characters never have any really big moments where they can emote where someone starts yelling or crying or whatever, and all the performances have to rely on subtlety. And the nuances were great; they just didn’t lead anywhere. But the entire movie seemed to follow that pattern: a whole lot of well done nothing. And well done nothing is still nothing (besides I like my nothing medium-rare; that's right I just made that joke).
Maybe I was looking for it to be a more interesting character study of our President, or maybe I was looking for a little more perspective historically speaking. Oliver Stone really dropped the ball in the shower with this one. Whatever it was W. was a lackluster look at this man we call Big Papa Smurf (well I’m sure someone does).
Rating: 6/10
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