W. (Widescreen)
by Oliver Stone
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Colin Hanks, Elizabeth Banks, Ioan Gruffudd, Josh Brolin, Toby JonesDirector: Oliver Stone
Brand: BROLIN,JOSH
Producer: Albert Yeung
Producer: Bill Block
Producer: Christopher Mapp
Producer: David Whealy
Producer: Elliot Ferwerda
Producer: Eric Kopeloff
Writer: Stanley Weiser
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 129 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-02-10
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Lions Gate
Movie Reviews of W. (Widescreen)
Movie Review: Not The Hatchet Job You Were Expecting
Summary: 5 Stars
I came to Oliver Stones "W" with any number of preconceptions, many of them not helped by an early trailer which made the entire exercise look like a parody of the man and his presidency; and while it's true, the film does contain satirical elements, I didn't consider them to be at the man's expense. True, the notorious pretzel incident is re-enacted; yes, we are treated to the sight of a tipsy Bush dancing on a bar and, yes, the wilderness years of his youth are examined in no small amount of detail. But this film, which simultaneously explores Bush's ascendancy from Yale pledge to CIC and the machinations of his administration during the run-up to the Iraq war, is a hypnotically fascinating, even-handed and highly intelligent piece of film-making which is far more than just a satirical biopic.
Oliver Stone has always been a film-maker I can take or leave. At his best, he can be an incisive explorer of cultural zeitgeist, at his worst he is little better than an exploitation film-maker; his output over the last couple of years has veered wildly between these two polarities, but with "Bush" he really has hit a home-run. There is no doubt in my mind that this is probably due to Stanley Weiser's excellent script and Josh Brolin's astonishing turn as the man himself (and if Brolin doesn't get an Oscar for this, it will only be due to the academy's cowardice). Stone has always been a film-maker who uses broad mythic sweeps in order to reveal a greater personal truth about his subject matter, and, once again, he doesn't resist that tendency here. Brolin's Bush begins his life as a man struggling with both the expectations impressed upon him by his birth into a dynastic political legacy and the passive disapproval of his father; the story then is essentially a tale of the son attempting to seek the approval of (and then usurp) the father's authority. But if this sounds like a deeply simplistic rendering of the complexities of a modern American figure, let me assure you that this is only the spine of a story on which Stone hangs the flesh of a sympathetic and even-handed treatment of the man.
Stone's examinations of the conflicts, resentments and motivations within the Bush cabinet are as fascinating as his portrait of the man himself. Those who ascribe to the theory that the entire Bush presidency was in fact a case of "the tail wagging the dog" will no doubt appreciate Richard Dreyfuss' brilliantly subtle turn as a vaguely Machiavellian Dick Cheney (referred to throughout the film as "Vice") but the film stops significantly short of painting him outright as the sinister puppet-master pulling all of the strings; and while possibly the film's best scene - in which, during the course of a situation meeting, Jeffrey Wright's superbly gruff Colin Powell questions the motivations of invading Iraq only to have Dreyfuss' Cheney illustrate them in unflinchingly certain terms - is undoubtedly mythologizing, but one finds it virtually impossible to deny, given the well-documented differences in both ideology and policy that existed between Powell and Cheney, that discussions and disagreements of this nature undoubtedly took place.
There are no villains in "W"; merely people attempting to make the best decisions that they can with the information that they have (or more significantly, haven't) got at the time. The film doesn't excuse or condone the actions of the Bush administration in regard to declaring a probably illegal war on a Iraq on the pretext of it's possession of nebulous WMDs, but it does give you an insight into the thinking behind those decisions.
"W" ends on a brilliantly ambiguous final shot which is a superbly sympathetic and utterly fitting metaphor for Bush as a man, a president, and, most poignantly, a misguided architect of a war declared on a spurious pretext which still grinds inexorably on to this day.
Summary of W. (Widescreen)
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 10-FEB-2009
Media Type: DVD
Oliver Stone?s W. is similar to his other movies about American presidents (JFK, Nixon), which is to say these films are much more about Stone?s imagined versions of reported events than they are alleged reenactments. As such, W. is Stone?s case for what he sees as the absurdity of George W. Bush?s ascendance to the White House and especially the arrogant blunder of the Iraq War. Josh Brolin is very good as the miscreant son of George H. W. Bush (James Cromwell), Vice President to Ronald Reagan and 41st president of the United States. Adrift in a sea of booze and squandered opportunities, the younger Bush is largely driven by a need for his disapproving father?s love and respect, which never truly arrives. Becoming a hatchet man for Bush Sr.?s administration, ?W? (as his wife, Laura--played by Elizabeth Banks--call him) meets Karl Rove (Toby Jones) and heads toward the Texas governorship, despite his father?s preference that the more golden son, Jeb, get all the family?s support in his Florida gubernatorial bid.
Told in broken chronology, W. focuses on Bush?s post-9/11 path to waging a ?preventive war? in Iraq despite no hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction to justify it. The major players in W?s administration--Rove, Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright), Condoleeza Rice (Thandie Newton), and especially Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss)--all participate in closed meetings that look and sound like every investigative account by the New York Times or Bob Woodward about the administration?s inner workings leading up to the war. Much of this is quite fascinating if a little weird (Newton?s performance is indeed strange), but the drama is often powerful, particularly around Powell?s resistance to the rising tide for a supposedly slam-dunk war. A number of the film?s key performances, besides Brolin?s, are very strong, especially Cromwell, Jones, Wright, Dreyfuss and Bruce McGill as George Tenet. --Tom Keogh
Beyond W. on DVD
 Family of Secrets the book |  W. the Soundtrack |  W. the Original Motion Picture Score |
Stills from W. (click for larger image)
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