I have so many thoughts on "Vice", the new Dick Cheney biopic, so I'll start with this: the movie seems like it was made more to show off Christian Bale playing Dick Cheney than Bale being the outstanding anchor of a confident film looking to tell a story. And to be fair...
Christian Bale really does embody Dick Cheney. He nails the role in a way that doesn't feel like a caricature (more on this later). But you get the sense someone woke up and said: "I wanna see Christian Bale as Cheney, let's get a script written up for that."
As if to compensate for the lack of a great overall story, the film gets a bit too damn artsy for its own good. There's a grab-bag of tricks throughout: little quick cuts, collage-like sequences, badly-done CGI done w/ historical footage, etc. -- as if to say: "See? Clever!"
It just doesn't feel like confident storytelling, which sucks because there's so much good stuff to explore with Cheney. How does this guy go from drunk college dropout to savvy, dark political operative within just a few years' time? The movie doesn't really answer that.
The movie seems to say he's saved by wife Lynne Cheney after a stern talking-to. Maybe... but how? We go from two DWIs to Assistant to the President in just 12 years and not a lot of math on the board to show for it. I want a movie on THAT, not Steve Carrell imitating Rumsfeld.
Again and again, watching "Vice" feels like browsing through a scrapbook for a problematic politician, which can be captivating. It's merely "interesting" here. Because Dick Cheney isn't just problematic; he is a truly awful human being.
The film shoots itself in the foot by playing things safe when it starts to venture into fertile ground. Dick Cheney's daughter Mary comes out to her family as gay, and Cheney is poignantly portrayed as loving and open-minded. And yet...
...later when Mary is a political liability for sister Liz in her own post-Bush White House political career, there's an eyeroll-inducing sequence in which the Cheney family reluctantly betrays Mary by allowing Liz to disavow marriage equality during her campaign. C'mon.
The Cheneys essentially stab their daughter in the back for being gay, and the film seems so scared of offending social conservatives that this is framed as an anguished decision that just has to be made. Ummm.... FUCK. THAT. NOISE.
Other things: Sam Rockwell is a good PARODY of George W. Bush, not a good George W. Bush. Because once again, a director without guts is too scared to portray Bush as something other than a cartoon character with an "aw, shucks" drawl who's being manipulated by Cheney.
Exaggerated impressions of Bush--by Will Ferrell, Frank Caliendo, etc--became such a staple in the 2000s that we now think of him as a wannabe cowboy with low intelligence. Bush was not "dumb". Bush knew exactly what he was doing. Bush was actually smart and savvy.
And one day, a director with guts is going to write Bush as intentionally and directly leading in numerous atrocities and not just a clownish, aloof witness to them. He will be portrayed as savvy and all-too-aware of how effective it is to downplay prince and play up cowboy.
I was disappointed with "Vice". It too often leans into "both sides" territory, such as being empathetic in Amy Adam's portrayal of Lynne or a bizarre to-camera monologue from Christian Bale (as Cheney) that uses 9/11 to justify Cheney's corruption and duplicity. WHAT THE FUCK.
But yes, if you would like to turn off your brain and laugh giddily at Rockwell's hammy interpretation of Bush or Bale grunting and snarling his way through Cheney, you can just do that, too.
Grade: C-
Grade: C-
