W (Stone, 2008)

[madali]

W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)

"W" is a movie for children. The level of political complexity and intelligence in "W" is so basic that I felt embarrassed watching it. The film moves back and forth during Bush's presidency and his life leading to it, and neither feels very well done. The presidency years are a joke, with the characters seeming like skits rather than actual political people. Dick Cheney is like a James Bond villain. It's fine for tabloids and blogs, but if you are going to tackle someone's life and when that someone is a President, it is more interesting to try to be close to reality. Because in such cases, reality is certainly interesting, otherwise why would we care for the story?

The film is filled with simple recognizable phrases for us to feel comfortable with it, such as "shock and awe", "axis of evil", " that says, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me…you can't get fooled again.", "decider", etc. But we already know this. We actually already know whatever the movie shows from the media that has talked about Bush for his 8 year presidency.

Show us something else. Show me the complexity of Bush's political life. Show me how he maneuvered himself to become the President. Throughout the movie, for all its political discussions, Israel is NOT MENTIONED ONCE. Not once. I know Israel is an important part of America's foreign policy. I know that politicians constantly talk to the Israelis and every candidate makes certain to give a speech  to AIPAC and it is certain that Israel played some role in the war with Iraq. But in this, by the numbers, ball-less, story of Bush's life, it doesn't contain any hard hitting questions. But don't worry, Oliver Stone had time to include a scene where Bush chokes on a pretzel.

2/5

[X.]

Ha ha, love the last line. I barely remember watching this film, because it was such a non-event. I haven't seen the political docs he's been doing lately so can't comment how senile Olly has become (then again, I don't think most people have seen Olly's recent shitload of political movies for various reasons; I can sleep tonight.)