W.

W.

Are you are tired of the Bush administration?

Then, this movie isn’t for you, and I’m still convinced this movie was not necessary.

W. is sometimes brilliant, but often times it misguided and unfocused. This makes W a very frustrating film that never reaches the greatness of Oliver Stone’s other presidential movies such as Nixon or JFK. Yet, there are some great moments buried in the sea of the mundane.

First off, I hate George W. Bush, but I have to wonder why Stone felt the need to fast-track this movie into theaters by 2008. The movie feels rushed and I think another year of pre and post-production would have improved this movie significantly.

Oliver Stone is not interested in telling a straight forward story about a flawed man with flawed views, which kind of works here, but a disjointed use of flashbacks and flash-forwards, Lost does it better with the jumping around in time. (What purpose did the pretzel scene serve?)

Liberals won’t be too satisfied with this movie, because Stone doesn’t set out to make a complete fool out of George W. Bush. This isn’t a full-on Bush bashing film.

Stone shows us that Bush is a guy that goes with his gut feeling despite the evidence. George will always live in the shadow of his father and with his father never approving of his actions. It also shows a young George Bush that is reckless and aimless in life who would later stumble into politics. The stuff I mentioned in this paragraph is what works in the film, but there isn’t enough of it. Instead, we get scenes with Bush taking a dump while he talks to his wife and a stupid dream sequence that ends the movie abruptly.

It seems like the movie wanted to cover many important issues and topics but none of them are fleshed out because of the running time. So, you’re left with an unfinished movie that has some nice performances, but nothing else.

The movie needed another year to smooth out the rough edges, but it was still an enjoyable enough film for what it is.

Grade: C+

-Josh Brolin is amazing as George W. Bush. I mean he was outstanding as him. I was completely convinced he was Bush. I just wish he was in a better movie

-Toby Jones doesn’t look like Karl Rove sorry. He was bit too squeaky in his voice too.

-Richard Dreyfuss almost steals the show with his portray of Dick Cheney.

-Jeffery Wright is another one that just fills out the character of Colin Powell.