Film Review of W. (2008) dir. Oliver Stone

The masses can release a huge sigh, now that we know the US has Obama as President and Republican rule is over. W. is a biopic of the life and psychology of George W Bush. The film opens and closes in an empty baseball stadium and the film does not go further to showing the audience that Bush had once owned it.

Instead, the baseball stadium acts as a metaphor to ironically represent how the ball never returns back to Bush in his quest for self-gratification due to a troublesome relationship with his father.

One can instantly presume that in years to come, this film will be shown to pupils in history class. It offers a peep hole through the failure of the Bushes and the Republicans. Oliver Stone adopts a sympathetic point of view upon Bush, which at times can be frustrating but never the less it is a unique point of view.

The only downfall of the film is the character of Tony Blair, played by Ioan Gruffadd. His performance is ridiculous and very short, the only similarity between him and Blair is the pathetic facial expression of confusion and desperation. Even so, the placement of Blair in W. seems meaningless and a waste of time.

Josh Brolin is perfect at playing George W Bush; his awkward pauses in between speeches, his manic Southern way of eating, his adolescent posture and the squinted eyes, all add up to fooling the audience that this really is the real W. Brolin is clearly giving his best performance yet and is not at all irritating in the process.

The extra diajetic sound of the Robin Hood theme song runs throughout the film which adds to the irony. Thandi Newton as Condoleezza Rice is unrecognisable. However she merely acts as a statue in the film and hardly ever steps up to the almighty Bush.

The film jumps back and fourth in time from W college years to his Presidency. His alcohol problems forms a substantial part of the film.

By the end of watching W. the question still remains, how on earth did this man manage to get in power?