Bush Gets Comic Treatment in 'W.'

It's hard to say when I became a fan of the films of Oliver Stone.

But it's safe to say that my admiration for his work goes back 30 years, to 1978, when I was in college and Stone was a screenwriter for "Midnight Express."

And I continued to admire his work as director of "Platoon," "Wall Street," "Born on the Fourth of July," "JFK" and "The Doors."

When I went to the theater to see his latest film, the George W. Bush "biopic" called, simply, "W.," perhaps I expected more than the film could deliver — and not just because I have been one of Stone's admirers for many years.

Each of the films I mentioned previously incorporated generous helpings of drama, irony and, all right, symbolism. And, in that Oliver Stone way, they drew conclusions without necessarily connecting all the dots for the viewers.

Sometimes Stone has accomplished that with style and precision. Other times, it's been done in a ham-handed kind of way. "W.," I felt, was an example of the latter.

The fault doesn't lie with the star of the show. Josh Brolin delivers a believable portrayal as George W. Bush, who struggles through his early life, trying to win his father's approval.

Every Oliver Stone movie seems to have an awkward moment that seems to cut a little too close to the bone. The best example I know of is the scene in "The Doors" in which Meg Ryan goes berserk at Thanksgiving.

I never saw an awkward scene in "W." Maybe that's because the really awkward part of the story is the fact that it isn't over yet. "Biopics," as they're called, typically aren't made until the subject is dead — or at least well into retirement. George W. Bush is neither.

That, it seems to me, is the problem with this movie. It attempts to tell a story that is still unfolding.

When Stone made his films about Vietnam, America's involvement in Southeast Asia had been over for a decade or more.

Jim Morrison had been dead for 20 years when Stone made his film about the Doors.

And nearly three decades had passed since Kennedy was assassinated before Stone made his film "JFK."

I often felt, as I watched "W.," that Stone wanted to confirm a conclusion he believes the audience has already reached.

He does not feel compelled to persuade the audience that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. In his mind, we're already there. Perhaps we are, or perhaps he puts too much faith in public opinion polls.

I don't mean to suggest I wasn't entertained by the film. I'm always entertained by Stone's movies, and "W." was no exception.

But it wasn't the same experience as it's been when Stone made a film that he felt represented a minority viewpoint. In those films, Stone's arguments have had more force, whether because his presentation was so eloquent or the evidence that supported his claims was unimpeachable.

Even in the film "Nixon," I felt Stone sought to provide a dramatic counterpoint to the positive view of Nixon that prevailed at the time, a little over a year after his death — even though the judgment of history on his role in the Watergate scandal had been reached long before and was practically (pardon the pun) chiseled in stone.

There's no statute of limitations on speculation, but there usually has to be an acknowledged public end of the story.

And the end of this story has yet to be written.

If anything, I suppose, I expected Stone to skewer the Bush presidency à la his treatment of "Nixon." What I didn't anticipate was the Comedy Central version of Bush's life.

Contributing to that sensation, I believe, was the music that played in the background — familiar tunes by Willie Nelson and Freddy Fender help to illustrate the mood of Bush's youth, "Spirit in the Sky" serves as the backdrop to his religious conversion, "What a Wonderful World" accompanies his efforts at democracy building.

But, in hindsight, it makes sense to treat the story in almost comic fashion compared to the tragedy of Watergate. Nixon's story was Shakespearean. Bush's story is clumsy, almost a modern-day Keystone Kops.

And, I think, that's especially true in Stone's hands, which produce some comic-book caricature portrayals of various people.

That's one of the problems with making a movie about a story that hasn't ended yet — especially in this age of cable and satellite TV, in which the public gains an almost intimate knowledge of how its leaders speak and act.

We expect to see mirror reflections — almost as if we're watching a documentary. Undeniably, there were points when it felt like a documentary, not a dramatization. At times, I almost had to remind myself that I was watching a film directed by Oliver Stone, not Michael Moore.

In some ways, I've come to expect the unexpected from Stone. In "Nixon," for example, Anthony Hopkins really didn't look much like Nixon — nor did he particularly sound like him. But Hopkins truly took on Nixon's persona in the role.

Visually, the depictions of many of the main characters in "W." were so accurate that it was like watching a "Saturday Night Live" parody.

Brolin was almost spooky in his resemblance to George W. Bush as the stories of the young boozing frat boy who has issues with his father and the "born again" reformed alcoholic of his later years — who still has issues with his father — unfolded on the screen, treated as almost parallel lines that intersect. That may, of course, be the story of many young men and the uneasy resolution of their adult lives with the mischief of their college days. But "W." is the one who became president.

Brolin had the voice and the mannerisms of "43" down to almost an art form.

Elizabeth Banks, as Laura Bush, looked the part but didn't sound enough like her real-life counterpart to pull it off, as far as I was concerned.

The same can be said, I think, for James Cromwell, who plays the elder Bush and is credible in appearance but not completely convincing when he speaks in the role of "41." That is also true of Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush. I admire the abilities of both Cromwell and Burstyn, but my memories of the Bushes are yet too vivid for me to accept their renditions of the First Couple.

Scott Glenn, on the other hand, gave a solid performance as Donald Rumsfeld. And, while his speaking time seemed a bit limited, Richard Dreyfuss was surprisingly believable as Dick Cheney.

There is no shortage of talent, but some of it is not used to its most effective extent.

Thandie Newton, for example, plays a surprisingly minor role as Condoleezza Rice, speaking in a Valley Girl style that seems totally inappropriate for someone so accomplished.

Toby Jones' slight build and offbeat face made him a natural choice to play Karl Rove, but I was never convinced that he had the intellect to be the architect of a successful presidential campaign — or advocate of a plan to invade Iraq.

I'll be honest, I'm just not too familiar with the previous work of Jeffrey Wright, but I felt he was short of the mark as Colin Powell.

Bruce McGill, as "Brother George" Tenet, and Michael Gaston, as Tommy Franks, are almost cartoonish — possibly suggesting that Stone believes the nation was goaded into invading Iraq and that the invasion itself was handled in an almost haphazard way.

Perhaps that's the moral Stone wants us to take from this film — that a president should be someone you can trust to make the right decisions, not the person you'd rather have a beer with.