Oliver Stone is a singular film-maker, capable of sustained, rewarding engagement with whatever it is he has turned his camera towards.
Sometimes, he gets it wrong; witness the borefest 'Alexander'. However, at his best, Stone has arguably no equal when it comes to a certain type of film. Thankfully, with the restrained but powerful 'W' he is on the money. Instead of making a dull hatchet job, simple polemic or lame satire, he tells the story of George W Bush as an engaging tragedy that is also a fascinating critique of our times.
It's fair - to the point of being sympathetic - and all the more effective for it.
Structurally, this is classic Stone; a life cut into snippets and repackaged into early and late periods, with connections and references zinging from one back to the other.
We see the pre-public Bush as the college boy for whom being imprisoned means a call to daddy and who is the 'victim' of waterboarding-esque antics at a frat-party. That boy develops into a directionless young man; a Texas party animal who is a disappointment to his father (Cromwell) and a failure at a succession of careers.
A pivotal scene sees Bush, Nixon-like, praying on his knees in one of several slightly distorted, surreal epiphanies. Stone is clear on how he turns his life around, at least partially getting over his son-father and alcohol issues and, ironically, making something of a success of himself.
Equally fascinating are the scenes of the presidential bedroom, the Oval Office and the situation room in which we see the adult Bush at work: impressionistic but largely realistic treatments driven by Stone's talent for shooting dialogue.
The dynamics of the familiar Bush inner circle also come under the microscope. In Stone's view, it's an unhappy confluence of flawed people, mistaken belief systems and wrong decisions.
There is Karl Rove (Jones), the PR genius lacking a moral compass who makes Bush a vote-winner. Condoleezza Rice (an unrecognisable Thandie Newton) is portrayed as awkwardly, deplorably sycophantic. Dick Cheney (Dreyfuss) is arrogant, confident and paranoid. It's Cheney who is the main exponent of the world-vision of freedom, democracy, religion, good, evil, the threat against America, and, ultimately, the oil imperative in which Bush finds himself utterly cocooned.
Donald Rumsfeld (Glenn) is largely limited to demonstrating his penchant for spouting epistemological nonsense. Finally, there's Colin Powell (Wright), who is nuanced, sympathetic and sensible but ultimately incapable of asserting his moral conscience.
Throughout, there is the swaggering decisiveness of the modern Bush. Dismissive of complexity. Flying the most powerful nation on earth by the seat of his pants.
Overall, it's compelling to observe.
On the performance front, Josh Brolin captures the aura of Bush - the swagger, the voice, the accent and the body language - without slipping into parody. Toby Jones' rendition of Rove is also beautifully done as a needy but still darkly powerful figure controlling from the margins. Richard Dreyfuss' Cheney is also an excellent vignette. From 'Dubya's personal life, Elizabeth Banks as Laura and, even more so, James Crowell as Bush senior, create truly engaging characters that comment instead of merely copying.
The rest of the characters are, by necessity, serviceable without being spectacular with most getting no more than a line here and there.
Overall, though, the effect is to strikingly capture the banality at the heart of Bush's presidency.
This is the tragedy of Bush; a weak man in a position of near absolute power in a world where, as a news analyst triumphantly declares, "perception is reality".
Brendan Cole
