NATURAL BORN DECIDER: Oliver Stone’s W.

Oct 23, 2008

The veteran filmmaker locates the simple, unvarnished soul of George W. Bush.

BY A.D. AMOROSI

When you first caught wind that Oliver Stone was teaming with his scriptwriter on Wall Street, Stanley Weiser, for a biopic on America's worst (and current) president you thought you'd get slapstick no matter what the bone wry Stone said to the press; something like Stone's own zany Natural Born Killers, or Alexander. So to get jutting jawed Josh Brolin to narrow his squint and scrunch his face and tighten his arms to portray a W. from his wet hot summer college frat days through to the wrongheaded Iraq conflict and make the entire production a sober, surprisingly serious chamber piece is a stunner. That Stone carries it off so much better than he did during Nixon is doubly amazing.

Directed by Oliver Stone.

Written by Stanley Weiser.

With Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Thandie Newton, Richard Dreyfuss and Jeffrey Wright.

(Lionsgate)

For Stone, Weiser and Brolin, Bush was a boy born to privilege who could get into Skull & Bones and Ivy League schools and get out of troubles with pregnant girlfriends and police through the auspices of "Poppy" Bush Sr. (James Cromwell; more on him later). That Texan noble pose becomes the essence of W.'s presidency, that Karl Rove (Toby Jones), Donald Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn) and Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) could get him in and make him king. That they couldn't get George out of trouble? That's for W.2.

Conflicted relationships form the film. More like his loud-mouthed mom (Ellen Burstyn) than his father, finding his way to God and AA (courtesy a Baptist preacher played by Stacy Keach) in a manner that turns him in a "Decider," the once booze-obsessed Bush is a man torn ultimately apart by being a just a guy with simple tastes better suited to running a baseball league than a country.

True to his word, Stone does not take sides or turn W. buffoonish. Stone allows his version of history to transpire: Bush prodding Tony Blair into war or leading his cabinet through a green field just to get lost; Bush missing the point or a question or the lessons learned by his father's elegant presidency. Or did he miss the point? Bush 2 was the one that got a chance at a second term, not Bush 1. That that fact sickens his father - that theirs is relationship that rarely surpassed its necessary beginnings - is what truly drives W. toward somber gracefulness. That's due to scowling, beady eyed, even crying Cromwell's bird-like prowess. He's cool, not cold; good, not grand; and perfectly picayune as the man that would be king had his son not done it twice and somewhat dumber. When Bush 1 rants to Bush 2 about messing up the legacy, it's Shakespearian tragedy closer to the epic rapid-fire J.F.K. than Nixon. But its tone is dark and somber like Nixon, not rapier smart, hurriedly acted or vividly paced like J.F.K..

There are strange, even silly elements to be found: the way Brolin swigs his beers as Bushie (whether alcoholic or O'Douls), or the manner in which Dreyfuss (subtly, just once) mangles his teeth and jaw in twitching, Cheney fashion, like a talking, still breathing death mask. Most particular to this is Thandie Newton who plays Condi Rice as if she was an Asian woman channeling Lily Tomlin's on ringy-dingy phone operator. Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell? Wright uses a grumbling barrel toned voice and stiff body language as if portraying Gregory Peck portraying Clark Gable in a WWII propaganda short. Newton and Wright go weird - which is almost okay, as nobody else seems to do so.

This isn't a completist version of the Bush tale (no real 9/11 or Katrina) nor is it meant to truly satirize Bush's eight year run or the news or the wonks. It isn't perfect as it seems to drag when Brolin and Elizabeth Banks (as Laura Bush) hit the screen in fine, if not dryly romantic, fashion. But Stone and Weiser are able-bodied and sober on their antsy beleaguered mission to find the simple soul of a simple man, and their star follows along chillingly close without seeming to make light (or mere impression) of the situation. If only the real Bush had made it all this easy.

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