I had been looking forward to watching VICE, the biopic on Vice President Dick Cheney. As it turns out, however, I found it disappointing. The film tries hard to be 'profound' and somehow particularly 'pithy', and employs to this end some inventive sequencing, flashbacks, long still shots, musical cues, even some faux-Shakespeare dialog, yet ends up being pithy only on its own terms, sort of like an inside joke. There is nothing new to learn here, nothing added to a narrative that we are already familiar with.
What I did find refreshing about the film was its depiction of the pertinent political figures--Cheney, Rumsfeld, GW--as real human beings, loving fathers and husbands, with actual feelings, rather than dastardly villains. I once heard an otherwise intelligent woman claim quite forthrightly that Cheney ate babies. I knew another man who was fixated on the idea that George Bush would soon be tried before 'The World Court' (whatever that is) for war crimes. A sort of cartoon narrative has grown up in the wake of the Bush years wherein the halls and chambers of government were shrouded in dark conspiracy, peopled by evil, conniving men who answered to no one except the god of greed and war. It is quite clear that after the advent of 9/11 the American nation was looking for some perpetrator upon whom wrath could be vented, and it is clear that the Bush circle fudged and molded, exaggerated its facts and data in choosing Saddam Hussein as the target. It is also clear--though this was not developed or even mentioned in the movie--that they could not have carried out their plan without the help of Saddam himself, waving his arms, firing his rifle in the air, and shouting "Me, me!"
Lastly, though Cheney can hardly be called a man of fascinating character and manners or silver-tongued speech, the portrayal by actor Christian Bale is nothing less than miraculous, both in nuance and in simple physical transformation. Somehow, Bale manages to become more Cheney than Cheney himself. But again, he's not working here with the character of Hamlet or Macbeth or even Batman. He has to be Dick Cheney, and that, ultimately, is not a very exciting role to play.
What I did find refreshing about the film was its depiction of the pertinent political figures--Cheney, Rumsfeld, GW--as real human beings, loving fathers and husbands, with actual feelings, rather than dastardly villains. I once heard an otherwise intelligent woman claim quite forthrightly that Cheney ate babies. I knew another man who was fixated on the idea that George Bush would soon be tried before 'The World Court' (whatever that is) for war crimes. A sort of cartoon narrative has grown up in the wake of the Bush years wherein the halls and chambers of government were shrouded in dark conspiracy, peopled by evil, conniving men who answered to no one except the god of greed and war. It is quite clear that after the advent of 9/11 the American nation was looking for some perpetrator upon whom wrath could be vented, and it is clear that the Bush circle fudged and molded, exaggerated its facts and data in choosing Saddam Hussein as the target. It is also clear--though this was not developed or even mentioned in the movie--that they could not have carried out their plan without the help of Saddam himself, waving his arms, firing his rifle in the air, and shouting "Me, me!"
Lastly, though Cheney can hardly be called a man of fascinating character and manners or silver-tongued speech, the portrayal by actor Christian Bale is nothing less than miraculous, both in nuance and in simple physical transformation. Somehow, Bale manages to become more Cheney than Cheney himself. But again, he's not working here with the character of Hamlet or Macbeth or even Batman. He has to be Dick Cheney, and that, ultimately, is not a very exciting role to play.
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