It's even more difficult when you leave gaping holes in the story that both undermine your point and lend ammunition to that figure’s defenders.
Oliver Stone’s "W." is meant to convey that George W. Bush is a lightweight who stumbled his way into the White House and misled the country. That’s not a hard thesis to sustain, and Stone makes an impressive effort in the re-enactments of cabinet meetings and other sessions in which the decision to invade Iraq was mulled and ultimately approved.
He also shows fairness to Bush, and good insight, by meaningfully depicting how becoming a Born-Again Christian turned the future president’s life around and transformed him from a boozing slacker who owed much of his life to his father’s string-pulling to a self-motivated force-to-be-reckoned with. At one point, a preacher tells the young Bush, soon to become governor of Texas, to treat everyone he meets "as if they were going to be dead at 12 o’clock" and show them unconditional love.
But depicting the life and presidency of George W. Bush with no reference at all to the protracted Florida legal battle that put him in office, which can either be described as his narrow victory or the misappropriation of the White House, depending on your perspective, is very much like depicting World War II with no reference to Pearl Harbor.
How Bush got into office and the shadow those events cast over his tenure is essential to understanding the Bush presidency. So is his more successful 2004 re-election and the "swift-boat" attacks on John Kerry that allowed him to finally outshine his father by winning the second term denied the old man.
Hurricane Katrina and the infamous "heck of a job, Brownie" reaction of the bumbling administration are also too pivotal to be excluded. True, there is only so much you can cram into a two-hour film, but Stone in two separate scenes shows the president choking on a pretzel –- as if that reflects more on his stewardship than the political purging of federal prosecutors, the Valerie Plame CIA leak or the disastrous and ill-fated nomination of his counsel, Harriet Myers, to the Supreme Court.
As it is, Stone’s film – evidently rushed for release before Election Day— wastes brilliant performances by nearly all the actors involved, particularly James Brolin (above) in the lead role and Richard Dreyfus as Dick Cheney, on an uneven film that toggles between farce and critical biopic. Once scene that has Bush and his inner circle, the most powerful men and woman in America wandering around Bush’s Crawford ranch, having lost their way – ostensibly a metaphor for the administration’s direction – looks like a late night TV skit with well-costumed and made-up actors trying their best to look foolish. Condoleezza Rice,as portrayed by Thandie Newton, comes across as particularly moronic, saying little in most scenes, sometimes simply repeating what others say, and usually coming across as completely intimidated by the men around her, an evasion (perhaps kind) of her pivotal role as Bush’s top foreign policy advisor. Colin Powell is portrayed more generously by Jeffrey Wright a the principled man in the room who ultimately caves in to the inevitable and supports the war at the UN.
Bush defenders will rightfully note that this film creates the misimpression that the Iraq war immediately undid the Bush presidency, if not Bush himself (in a dream sequence he is seen squaring off with his scornful father, who calls the war a "fiasco," an affirmation of his longstanding disapproval) without regard to two significant facts.
First, Bush was handily re-elected at a point where the war was it its deadliest, a year after his ridiculous "mission accomplished" aircraft carrier stunt. Secondly, the 2007 troop surge, rebuffed by Democrats and other critics as further escalation of a losing war, has earned Bush bragging rights, having drastically reduced the number of American casualties and stabilized Iraq to the point that a phased, victorious withdrawal is no longer a pipe dream.
Some say Stone was too kind to the president, considering his known left-wing bent. But what’s evident is that he was unfair to himself, cranking out a restrained and muddled effort that teases us with the possibility of a better, more illuminating film.
How Bush got into office and the shadow those events cast over his tenure is essential to understanding the Bush presidency. So is his more successful 2004 re-election and the "swift-boat" attacks on John Kerry that allowed him to finally outshine his father by winning the second term denied the old man.
Hurricane Katrina and the infamous "heck of a job, Brownie" reaction of the bumbling administration are also too pivotal to be excluded. True, there is only so much you can cram into a two-hour film, but Stone in two separate scenes shows the president choking on a pretzel –- as if that reflects more on his stewardship than the political purging of federal prosecutors, the Valerie Plame CIA leak or the disastrous and ill-fated nomination of his counsel, Harriet Myers, to the Supreme Court.
As it is, Stone’s film – evidently rushed for release before Election Day— wastes brilliant performances by nearly all the actors involved, particularly James Brolin (above) in the lead role and Richard Dreyfus as Dick Cheney, on an uneven film that toggles between farce and critical biopic. Once scene that has Bush and his inner circle, the most powerful men and woman in America wandering around Bush’s Crawford ranch, having lost their way – ostensibly a metaphor for the administration’s direction – looks like a late night TV skit with well-costumed and made-up actors trying their best to look foolish. Condoleezza Rice,as portrayed by Thandie Newton, comes across as particularly moronic, saying little in most scenes, sometimes simply repeating what others say, and usually coming across as completely intimidated by the men around her, an evasion (perhaps kind) of her pivotal role as Bush’s top foreign policy advisor. Colin Powell is portrayed more generously by Jeffrey Wright a the principled man in the room who ultimately caves in to the inevitable and supports the war at the UN.
Bush defenders will rightfully note that this film creates the misimpression that the Iraq war immediately undid the Bush presidency, if not Bush himself (in a dream sequence he is seen squaring off with his scornful father, who calls the war a "fiasco," an affirmation of his longstanding disapproval) without regard to two significant facts.
First, Bush was handily re-elected at a point where the war was it its deadliest, a year after his ridiculous "mission accomplished" aircraft carrier stunt. Secondly, the 2007 troop surge, rebuffed by Democrats and other critics as further escalation of a losing war, has earned Bush bragging rights, having drastically reduced the number of American casualties and stabilized Iraq to the point that a phased, victorious withdrawal is no longer a pipe dream.
Some say Stone was too kind to the president, considering his known left-wing bent. But what’s evident is that he was unfair to himself, cranking out a restrained and muddled effort that teases us with the possibility of a better, more illuminating film.
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