OLIVER STONE’S “W.“
REVIEW BY 790
STARS: JOSH BROLIN, RICHARD DREYFUSS, JAMES CROMWELL, ELLEN BURSTYN, SCOTT GLEN, THANDLE NEWTON, STACY KEACH, AND JEFFERY WRIGHT.
Running Time: 131 min.
Let me just say right up front, I found Oliver Stones W. to be disturbingly good. It skims the surface of the real story at the same time reveals how bad it really is with this guy in power. Ironically W. had some of the best acting performances I’ve seen in years.
W. is the story of George W. Bush as he starts his life after college in hopes gaining success, and the respect of his distant father George Herbert Walker Bush.
One big reason to see W. is Josh Brolin. Brolin pulls off the role of his career as the inept older son trying to excel in anything (at all) to impress his Poppy. I haven’t seen a total performance so well done in years. Its even better than Heath Ledgers, Joker. I predict Josh Brolin will get the Oscar for his performance of George W Bush. Stone even uses actually news footage that has been subtly altered with Brolin over the real Bush. Those vintage moments totally create the illusion that Brolin is Bush. It is eerie at times to behold.
The opening scene in the Oval Office coming up with the term “Axis of Evil”, was horrifically 24 like, (season 5) to be correct. 24 fans should get that one. After the media [spin term] is created to help launch a war that will end up killing hundreds of thousands of people, Bush, declares the meeting a success, and then asks everyone in the room to pray (to God) with him. All the while Dick Cheney looks on in the corner with a twisted smile. Richard Dreyfuss, who plays Dick Cheney, should also win the Oscar for his amazing performance. He plays Dick with such evil confidence, and superior intelligence over the completely oblivious Bush, that I bet even the real Dick is impressed.
Thandle Newton , (the hot Necromancer in Chronicles of Riddick) plays Condoleezza Rice with dead on, total immersion of the character, another Oscar winning performance! So many great performances also by James Cromwell as Poppy Bush, and Toby Jones as Karl Rove, Bush’s “word man”.
Oliver Stone uses the religion card pretty heavy in this film, showing Bush (after becoming Born Again) as a man who believes he’s destined to become President because God gave him the Callin. Stacy Keach plays George’s pastor, Earle Hudd in twisted tele-evangelistic fashion.
Stone decided (wisely) instead of showing W. using the religion card as a political ploy to get votes, he would show Bush as a God fearing righteous man. It works because there’s scenes that show us how far Bush is willing to go in proving to everyone that he’s a leader especially his Poppy (That’s what he calls him in the film btw).
After the events of 9-11, (that are hardy covered at all) we see how Bush is led astray down the path of confusion by Cheney and Rumsfeld who are both playing dumb, all the while duping the President into going to into Iraq.
It’s strange the way Stone pulls this film off, some of the scenes in the war-room are given a Strangelove setting that only adds a surreal look to the film. One of the scenes I’ll never forget was a scene that showed Barbera Bush and George sitting in there posh living room watching on TV, the Iraqis pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein. As the camera pulls in front of them we see them giggling and eating Popcorn.
There’s a few brilliant (pun intended) illuminatti references. The most obvious is his moment in the park as he sees God in the Sun (very slick Stone!), there’s a lot of sly references in the film like that. There was a great False Flag reference between W, and Tony Blair that I thought was very deep to the truth. However I was a little bummed Stone didn’t go into the Skull and Bones stuff, but then that would have conflicted with George becoming Born Again. Instead the frat was called the Delta Capsters.
Anyway, I think I have to recommend this film. I actually didn’t expect it to be this good. Stone could have told the real truth but people would have laughed him out of Hollywood. The way the film ended I also found very cryptic. Not the baseball scene the way it just faded to black and said, “The End.”
W. Is rated PG-13, I’m pretty sure it was for the scene where Colin Powell tells Dick Cheney to fuck off.