Starring Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks. Written by Stanley Weiser. Directed by Oliver Stone. (PG) 129 min. Opens Oct 17.
Billed as the fall’s most contentious film, W. is likely to upset people on both sides of the political divide, though not for the reasons you might expect. It’s unlikely, of course, that those who still support the most unpopular US President in history will appreciate the scenes detailing his ill-spent, booze-soaked youth, or the strong implications in Stanley Weiser’s script that the invasion of Iraq was masterminded around the desire for oil. But those expecting a Stone-cold hatchet job — i.e. what was promised in the trailers, which made the film look like a burnished, star-filled SNL skit — are going to be disappointed.
W. has its cartoonish aspects (as Condoleezza Rice, Thandie Newton seems to be channelling Kristen Wiig) but it doesn’t caricature its subject. Stone envisions Bush (played in what amounts to little more than a decent impersonation by Josh Brolin) not as the bellicose blunderer of so many insider accounts but rather as a prideful yet pliable black-sheep boy with a penchant for malapropisms and crippling daddy issues. It’s not a respectful depiction, but it stops well short of characterizing him as an idiot or worse.
Actually, “stops short” is a pretty good description of W. as a whole. The movie keeps feinting at actual insight — the treatment of Colin Powel (Jeffrey Wright) as the administration’s fall guy lines up with the recent literature on the war — but it never coalesces. And it doesn’t have the car-crash fascination of other Stone films: it’s formally restrained and the requisite hallucination sequences (with George Jr. imagining himself as an outfielder losing the ball in the lights) are prosaic rather than demented. Whether this implies that we’re dealing with a wiser, more mature Oliver Stone (pause for laughter) or that the legendary shit-disturber dashed this one off in the throes of confusion and reticence (more like it) is ultimately irrelevant: the film gives off a strong scent of opportunity squandered.