W. ***

When I first heard that Oliver Stone was going to make W., I thought that there was no way I'd ever see it. After the paranoid conspiracy theories in JFK, I gave up on Stone's films. Then I saw him on Real Time with Bill Maher, and Stone actually seemed ... reasonable. And good reviews started coming out. So while I missed my chance to see the premiere at the Austin Film Festival, I decided I'd give the film a shot.

In case you haven't heard or guessed, W. is about the life of George W. Bush, portraying snippets of his formative years, his aimless adulthood, his rise through politics, and the start of the Iraq war. The script focuses on the dynamic between George W. and his father, George H. W. Bush, and uses that dicey relationship to drive W.'s motivations. The film cuts back and forth in time, jumping between 2003, his frat days, and the decades in between.

Without question, the best thing about the film is Josh Brolin as W. I can't believe this is the same guy who was in No Country for Old Men. His portrayal is no comedic caricature; he lives and breathes the role. He is W. There is no question. It's a truly amazing and seamless performance.

Elizabeth Banks (who seems to be in every movie out right now) does a decent job as Laura Bush. James Cromwell doesn't try to inhabit the role of the senior Bush the way Brolin does for junior. However, given that subconsciously I may have been expecting too much of a Dana Carvey version of Bush 41, it may be for the best that Cromwell played it perfectly straight, with few mannerisms or emotions beyond his lifelong disappointment with Bush 43.

Most of the rest of the supporting cast, including Richard Dreyfuss as a manipulating and adamantly focused Dick Cheney, do passable jobs themselves. It's also funny to see Daily Show veteran Rob Corddry in a small role as press secretary Ari Fleischer, with the satirist now playing one of the targets of his past barbs without a trace of farce. The weak point by far is Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice. She. Is. Horrible. Her movements are jerky almost to the point of being a puppet, and her voice sounds like it was dubbed in afterwards by an untalented impressionist. She plays Rice as a caricature, and badly at that. If Brolin's performance weren't so strong, she could easily have brought the entire movie down.

Besides Newton, the biggest flaw in the film is that it hardly brings anything new to the table. The film makes a big deal about the clashes between Bush 41 and 43 and how they motivate everything George W. tries to do, especially as president, but none of that is new information. Plenty of people have proffered that theory already. The idea that George W. is a decent guy who got in way over his head is also nothing new. Nor is the notion that people like Cheney drove W.'s agenda from their own hard-right worldview. One of the few scenes that actually seems to fill in the blanks well is when W.'s preacher helps him to be reborn in Christ; it's actually quite a sincere moment. And the contrast between Colin Powell and Cheney in the Bush 41 administration versus the Bush 43 administration is actually interesting as well.

The longest scene in the film is a cabinet meeting debate over whether to invade Iraq. And it goes on forever. Stone could have made his point in half the time. I started to get bored. (I also found it to be somewhat depressing that this might have been how we got into this mess, but that's a political opinion that should not reflect on my review of the film). And the famous pretzel choking incident, which gets its own scene in the film, seems completely extraneous. It adds little or nothing to the film and seems to have no purpose other than to show us something we've all read about already. Even as someone who never voted for the real President W. and who doesn't think highly of him, I thought including that scene was pointless.

The film assumes the audience has a fair amount of familiarity with the events in the movie already. If you don't remember everyone who's been in Bush 43's cabinet, you might find yourself trying to remember who's who. It took me half the film to realize that the "George" that W. kept referring to was George Tenet, because it took that long for them to put the letters "CIA" with him. So at times, you may find yourself scrambling to figure out who or what they just referred to in passing, which is a little distracting.

Unless you believe that George W. Bush is the greatest president who ever lived, W. comes across as a fairly sympathetic portrayal of our 43rd president. Surprisingly so. And the film does seem to exonerate him of anything except being driven by his father's disdain and preference for Jeb Bush. Cheney and others are to blame for his failed policies in this film, not him. He just has daddy issues.

Overall, W. is entertaining, but in the end, it's fairly light fare. Very little meat is added to the story outline we've all heard about George W. Bush already over the years. Still, it's worth seeing for Josh Brolin's amazing performance. If you're coming from a hard-right or even a hard-left political viewpoint, you probably won't enjoy this film, as it would either go too far or not nearly far enough for your tastes. But if you're open to a portrayal of George W. Bush that's neither flattering nor a hatchet job, leave your politics at the concession stand and go see W.