W.

Four little words: Wait for the DVD. Better yet, skip it. I didn’t have huge expectations for this movie, even though it was directed by Oliver Stone. I had modest ones. I hoped that it would dip below the surface and offer a more nuanced and complex version of a guy who seems, to all outer appearances, to be a buffoon. Nope. All we saw was buffoon. Buffoon swilling beer. Buffoon eating and talking with his mouth open. Buffoon looking over his glasses. This is a one trick movie. The one and only story line—W. is the way he is in response to the expectations of his elite family, which had high expectations for its children. He first bucked the family line, then embraced it to try to gain his father’s approval. There, I’ve saved you twelve bucks. There’s really not much more to it than that. Josh Brolin’s performance is good, he really embodies Bush’s physical characteristics. Richard Dreyfuss, as Cheney, is also good. The rest of the performances don’t even border on caricatures…they are caricatures. Thandie Newton’s take on Condi Rice, for instance, consists of a limp wristed stance, a weird half grimace, and a robotic sounding voice. (I’m not kidding. She’s horrible.) I’m not a huge fan of Bush, but even I think there’s got to be more to him than a daddy-complex and horrific tendency to eat with his mouth open.