W: Waste of Time

I expected deep insight into America’s least respected president ever. I expected to understand what make the man so famous for verbals gaffs that the phrase ‘Bushisms’ has been coined to describe them tick. I expected to love him or hate him but at least have every image I ever held of the USA’s out-going president turned on it’s head.What I got, however, was not much of anything…Stone’s film dips it’s toe in Dubya’s past, including portraying his apparently stormy relationship with his politically active father and his hell-raising past as a young man. These flashbacks, however, are abandoned too early in the film to have any significant impact on our understanding of Bush as he is now, the most powerful man in the world. Instead we are subjected to re-hashes of his political decisions in the wake of 9-11. Perhaps in 20 or 30 years time these sequences will seem more powerful, but given that these events are still so vividly etched in the audience’s minds, at times I just felt like I was watching Sky News.Speaking of the news, I can only hope that the segment in which two American newscasters discuss Bush’s pull on the voters simply for wearing army gear was a satirical statement on cable news channels in the States because if the banter which passes for analysis between the two news anchors in any way resembles actual news coverage, then American journalism is doomed! According to these happy, polished presenters, it doesn’t matter that Bush never went to war himself, he looks good in uniform and apparently that should be enough to win the trust of the voters during America’s most turbulent time in international relations since the Vietnam War.For the most part, though, satire is thin on the ground as Stone refrains from poking fun at his subject or making any serious comment on the politics of the Bush era. I think much of the audience I viewed W. with were disappointed by this, as several loudly guffawed at even the slightest suggestion of mockery, perhaps expecting that there would have been more examples of this.Oliver Stone took a fantastic cast giving phenomenal performances (with the sole exception of Thandie Newton who portrayed Condoleezza Rice as a constipated twig in a manner which can only be described as painful to watch) and failed to make any sort of political or editorial statement worth taking home. Perhaps ambiguity was his aim, but considering the length of the film (a bum-numbing 130 minutes) and it’s subject matter, I expected to at least have a few things to mull over on the Luas ride home…no such luck. More than anything, I was actually bored by the film, to the point where I actually dozed off for a few minutes mid-way!I don’t think every film-maker needs to use the in-your-face propaganda of Michael Moore (in fact, the one of him is more than enough!) but I do think that we need a bit more bite from our cinematic political profiles, especially when they focus on such a controversial figure. For that reason I’m keeping my hopes up that ‘Frost/Nixon’ will provide me with more political meat to sink my teeth into on it’s release than W.’s pitiful scraps.
2*s**