W, the B Movie

I have to be up front about this--I'm not a big fan of Oliver Stone. Loved Platoon. JFK and Nixon, not so much. Both were a perversion of history, mixing fact and fiction, educating or rather mis-educating (is that even a word?) whole generations. That said, when I picked up the W DVD from the library, I was excited. I shouldn't have been. The whole movie was a big disappointment.

Where to start? I'll just ramble now. The acting was bad, real bad. "B" movie bad. The actors seemed more concerned with becoming the caricatures of the people they played than actually playing the people. Rove was painful, Laura was stilted, Rummy was ridiculous, Powell spoke in an odd whisper, and Condi was an over-the-top sycophant. The plot was all over the place and Stone rearranged the timeline like he always does. The musical score was distracting, particularly during the most crucial part of the movie where the inner circle was discussing whether or not to go into Iraq--a scene which needed no score. Finally, if you watch the whole movie, Stone's thesis is that W has Daddy issues and that's what his whole presidency is all about. Sorry, I'm just not buying it.