Oliver Stone once told us that gay anti-communists killed JFK and that Jim Morrison was more than a cretin with a beard.
Now he takes on President Bush with "W.," half of which is a boozy, half-cocked oedipal drama and the rest of which is an episode of "The West Wing" written by an eighth grader.
In Stone's world, Bush begins as a hard-drinking ne'er-do-well, fumbling through life on the strength of his name. His father, whom he calls Poppy, begrudgingly bails him out of jail, gets him into Ivy League schools and gives him a company to run.
Then, after a long night with Jack Daniels, Bush goes out for a run and gets struck down by God. Or something.
Stone follows Bush from here as he makes a failed run for Congress, buys the Rangers, wins the Texas governorship and, of course, becomes president and invades Iraq.
And that is where the movie's wheels fall off.
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The Bush White House, according to Stone, is populated by one-dimensional caricatures who speak in sound bites. Donald Rumsfeld is a bellicose dinosaur, Dick Cheney is the Emperor from "Star Wars," Colin Powell can see the future, and George Tenet is a fat idiot.
While that last one is arguable, most of the portraits in the film are lazy and bland. Writer Stanley Weiser seems to have skimmed Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward and bought up all the "Bushisms" day calendars from the Barnes & Noble bargain bin. He amassed a bunch of real quotes from the major players and sprinkled them anachronistically throughout the film. Thus, "W." puts the unwieldy truth in a blender and serves up an uneven, pedestrian smoothie.
And that's when the movie sticks to the facts. When "W." veers into speculation, like in the requisite scenes of a dark room with a map of the world on the wall, the process gets painful.
Bush and the gang are gearing up to invade Iraq. Rummy and Cheney are all for it. Gen. Tommy Franks, who was apparently born with a cigar in his mouth, is thirsty for blood.
But Powell, the remarkably prescient secretary of state, isn't convinced. In fact, his criticisms of Franks' plan are so spot-on, it's as if he subscribes to newspapers from the future. After Cheney outlines the plan of attack, Powell, visibly disturbed, asks what the U.S.'s exit strategy will be.
Then the music swells and the camera closes in on Cheney's asymmetrical smirk of evil, and he says, "There isn't one."
I expected him to finish his sentence with "Meester Bond."
The same sloppy speculation takes hold when "W." addresses Bush's relationship with his father. Stone's Bush Sr. is a condescending aristocrat, always bailing a pigheaded W. out of a jam. At one point, the two almost come to blows when a wasted Junior crashes daddy's car into a lawn decoration after getting a teenage Jeb drunk.
And thus goes the story of Oedipus W. Bush. He spends his presidency trying to please Bush Sr., vowing to vanquish Saddam Hussein because he "tried to kill muh dad."
But there are flashes of good filmmaking in "W." Bush's conversion to Christianity is one of the few events that seem unaffected by Stone's contempt for his subject. Bush is led to the light by a harelipped Texas pastor, and Stone explores the nuance of the president's faith and how it shaped his electioneering and management.
The best scene in "W." comes as Bush meets Laura, his future wife, at a backyard Texas barbecue. She's a quiet librarian (and registered Democrat), and he's a beer-swilling socialite with a stupid hat. But she's eventually won over by his folksy, self-deprecating charm - the same whimsy and humor that helped him convince the Congress and the nation that pre-emptive war was a good idea.
This scene provides Stone's only lasting portrait of Bush: He's a Connecticut-born Yale grad, but he has a Texas twang and lives on a ranch. With a half-eaten hot dog in his mouth and a Shiner in his hand, Stone's Bush briefly embodies the contradictions that make the president so fascinating. His dad's connections gave him a path to power, and his down-home charm won over voters. But those same powerful friends led him to his undoing, and even his most lighthearted quips couldn't put him back in the public's favor.
If only the other two hours of "W." were bearable.
W.
In Theaters Now
Grade: D+
