W. by Oliver Stone Leaves Audience Stone Cold

No matter what you think about the Presidency of George W. Bush, it has not been boring. Oliver Stone in his film “W.” about George W. Bush’s life and Presidency failed to keep our attention.

This surprised me. While I do not share Oliver Stone’s political or worldview, I have respected him as a filmmaker. His movie Wall Street was an interesting look at the financiers who believe in Economic Darwinism. He used innovative camera movement and fast paced editing in his portrayal of serial killers in Natural Born Killers, and amused me with his clever End Zone celebrations in his professional football movie Any Given Sunday. He made you want to keep watching. He entertained.

Normally I would have skipped a theatre viewing of W. Coming out in theatrical release just weeks before a Presidential election the film was clearly intended to influence public thought and media discourse. Stone is a Hollywood director who, to his credit, does not try to hide his left wing views. However, my wife reminded me of Sun Tzu’s advice about “Keeping your friends, close and you enemies closer,” and we decided to see what Mr. Stone was about.

The theatre was filled almost exclusively with men. My wife felt out of place, until just two more women filed in at the last minute. My work on political campaigns has heightened my political senses. I can walk around a neighborhood or precinct and smell within five percentage points if it is liberal, conservative, Democrat or Republican. Don’t laugh…Malcolm Gladwell describes similar such abilities in his book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.” I took one whiff of the movie theatre and knew that my wife and I were surrounded by not just Democrats, but Liberal Democrats.

We were probably the only people in the room who had voted for George W. Bush, let alone having met him. I wondered what the other theatregoers would have thought if they had known that, I had worked for President George Herbert Walker Bush.

Expecting Oliver stone to use his considerable cinematic powers to skin alive the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue I was surprised. But not pleasantly. Stone attempted to portray George W., as a man driven by his inability to please or live up to his imposing father, the President. Fair enough. James Brolin was widely praised for his portrayal of George W. but I found Brolin to be inconsistent. There were moments where he hit it dead on: as when he placed his Cowboy Boot shod feet on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. However, at many other times, especially the scenes in Texas, it seemed as though he were playing doing an impression of John Travolta in Urban Cowboy rather than George W. Although the hair and makeup people did a good job in making him physically look like Bush.

Actors and Directors need to choose if there are going to try to do an impression of a well-known personality, a parody or their own interpretation. Stone, Brolin and the assembled cast in W. seemed to have wavered in their decision. There was neither drama, nor parody. Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, Scott Glen as Donald Rumsfeld, actors with presence playing powerful men. Yet there was no gravitas – or humor. I’m not sure what Thandie Newton was trying to do in her depiction of Condoleeza Rice – she looked and sounded as if she were wrapped to tight in her girdle and did not even come close to Condi Rice’s natural grace and confidence. James Cromwell chose to play “Poppy” Bush, the 41st President as James Cromwell, which is a valid choice except that Stone did not ask anyone else in the film to act this way. Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell is relegated to being one-demensional and looking uncomfortable as he obliquely express his opposition to invading Iraq. When good or great actors, as some members of the W. cast undoubtedly are, get into their role, they start to own or wear the character like a second skin. Only Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush succeeds at this in W. The others, Glenn, Dreyfuss, comedian Rob Corddry of The Daily Show as Ari Fleisher and he others, seemed to be unable to distance themselves from their dislike of the characters they are playing. Cheney, Rumsfeld et al have been accused of being too self-confident. The actors in W., so dislike these people that they look uncomfortable with themselves.

All of the victorious moments of George W.’s life are glossed over. The 2000 election and the drama of the Florida recount are relegated to a passing reference by W.’s father in a dream sequence. W. defeats a popular incumbent Texas Governor Ann Richards? The campaign is short shrifted as Karl Rove, played by Toby Jones, giving W. a few talking points on a bench in Austin, next thing you know he is Governor. There is considerable time spent on W.’s conversion to Born Again Christianity with the usually reliable Stacy Keach portraying a seemingly confused Pastor Earl Hudd. However, the famous walk at Kennebunkport with Billy Graham is omitted.

One scene did make me chuckle. It shows a Born Again W. in 1988 trying to convince his father to court the Evangelical vote and he explains that Karl Rove has put together a bunch of numbers of why this part of the electorate is so important. The scene made me laugh not because it was humorous on screen, it’s just that by 1988 Vice President Bush was well briefed on the Evangelical vote – and not by Karl Rove, but by and old friend of mine Doug Wead. Wead (see his excellent blog on The Top Ten Most Outrageous Attacks on Sarah Palin) had written an over 100-page white paper on the Evangelical vote for Vice President Bush in 1985. But okay, Stone and his screenwriter wouldn’t have known that.

George W Bush’s Presidency has been transformational. There has been more restructuring of the federal government (Office of Homeland Security, Director of National Intelligence, Patriot Act, $700 Billion bailout of Banks and Wall Street firms, etc) since FDR. How history judges him remains to be seen.

I thought perhaps I was too bored by the movie since I did not see Bush the way Oliver Stone does. But the, after the movie one of the other theatre patrons asked my wife and I if we had seen the movie. We admitted we had. He then said, "I would have rather just sent Oliver Stone my money and not had to watch the movie." He said, "there was no point," and "it was just plain boring."

In his haste to get the film W. out before the November election, Oliver Stone forgot a basic rule of filmmaking: he forgot to entertain the audience.