W.

So I snuck away during lunch today to see W. Overall, I'd say it was pretty good. I have to admit, though, that I'm not really sure who the movie is intended for. It actually pulls too many punches to please the throngs of Bush-haters (which, judging by the latest approval ratings, is round about everybody nowadays). You won't find any scenes of him snorting coke, getting DUIs, smearing John McCain in 2000, or any mention of My Pet Goat. Sure, there are plenty of scenes of him drinking in his early life, but it's not exactly controversial to say that Bush drank a lot during his youth. So, it's pretty safe to say that anyone going into the movie expecting to see a non-stop pummeling of Bush the younger is going to be disappointed. On the other hand, it's unlikely that Republicans will like it either. After all, it's certainly not a coincidence that this is being released 18 days prior to the election and while I said that it doesn't pummel him it certainly doesn't paint him in a glowing light either. Largely, the movie reinforced the opinion I've had of him for the last 3-4 years. It paints the picture of a man who's been struggling his entire life to step out of the shadow of his father and his family's legacy. In a number of ways, he is a very tragic figure. Contrary to what a lot of the far left vilifies him to be he is not some evil, greedy, Machiavellian figure. He is a guy who genuinely believed (and still does) that what he is doing is right for the country and for the world and whose biggest mistake was surrounding himself with people that did not provide him with the crucial information he needed at the correct time. I am not trying to be a Bush apologist. The man made a lot of very, very bad decisions and we will be paying the price for them for a long time. Those bad decisions were a product of misinformation, stubbornness, and too much reliance on "gut feelings" instead of reevaluation of each situation as the facts changed. But I don't believe they were mainly the product of greed or malice. In the end, I still despise George W. Bush the President, but I really do feel empathy for George W. Bush the human being.

One of the people that comes off pretty well in the film is George H.W. Bush. Most of the film centers on him as an exasperated father dealing with a child who shows no real desire or ambition for anything for his first 40 years. He is proud of his son's accomplishments but can't connect with him, and he seems almost bewildered when the life and legacy that seemed destined to go to Jeb almost falls in George's lap instead. What little we see of Bush the elder as a politician centers on his side-stepping a number of the perils that W fell into headlong. Ironically, while W's numerous mistakes may have tainted the Bush name, it actually seems to have enhanced the legacy of H.W. Maybe it's just because enough time has passed that we can now look on his presidency with a less biased lens. Maybe not. But if that is indeed the case, then who knows? Maybe 15 years from now W will be right and history will vindicate him. I sincerely doubt it, but I have to leave open the possibility. I never thought my opinion of H.W. would have risen with time, and I never thought my opinion of Clinton would have risen with time either, but both happened.

Powell comes off very well too. Actually, I think he comes across a little too well. I am definitely a fan of Powell, and in all the books I've read concerning the Iraq war he was in fact one of the only people in the administration pushing for a conservative and diplomatic approach. But he is presented here as something of a crusader (in one scene in particular) whereas the story I've come to believe is one where he spoke out a few times early on but then gradually grew silent as he realized that his opinion was not valued and not often requested. I believe his decision to resign in 2004 is pretty concrete proof that he chose to remove himself rather than stay and try to fight, well, pretty much everyone. Mind you, I'm not criticizing him for that decisio, but I just don't think that's the perception that comes across in the film.

I have read a lot of praise about Thandie Newton's portrayal of Condoleeza Rice, and I just don't really see it. It is by no means a bad performance but apart from her looking spot on like her, there is very little meat to the role and she's largely a background character. Biggest props go to Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney (who, in the words of Ebert, "is not so much a double as an embodiment" of him) and of course Josh Brolin as W. It's hard to imagine one or both not garnering an Oscar nomination.

So in the end you have a well-made, well-acted film that is far more even handed than I would have thought Oliver Stone capable of. I'm still not exactly sure who it was made for, and I'm also not sure if the film will age well after the public has forgotten about the specifics of the Bush years. I guess, as W. himself would say, "we'll let history decide that".