Vice

I was not a big fan of director Adam McKay's THE BIG SHORT.  I felt that he was too pleased with his own style, which included cameos by notables to explain wildly complicated things like collateralized debt obligations, as related to the big crash of 2008.  Cute.  Film school eagerness cute.  Also, too much use of ironic music.  I'm tired of all that.

So I was not surprised to hear that 2018's VICE, a biography of former Vice President Dick Cheney, employed more bags of tricks and eccentric editing.  It was enough to delay my viewing, but eventually curiosity won out.  Mainly to see Christian Bale disappear into this role.  To my surprise, while McKay stays true to his comedy roots several times during his movie, I didn't find it as obnoxious as the earlier film.

Interesting, given there is a gag when the film's end credits begin rolling a bit early.  Later, Alfred Molina shows up as a waiter, discussing things on the menu as sleazy interpretations of the law as related to invading Iraq instead of chateau briand.  Or when Cheney and his wife Lynne (Amy Adams, also somewhat unrecognizable), have a bedtime conversation in ersatz Shakesperian language, ala "Mcbeth"..  Somehow these moments, while thoroughly juvenile, kinda worked for the overall movie.

During VICE, I was reminded of Oliver Stone's NATURAL BORN KILLERS at times, as assaultive images of torture (or however Cheney's team euphamised it) and a host of other clips race by.  Unlike that of NBK, McKay thankfully doesn't make his entire movie play this way, but it still serves only to reveal that the director still has a long way to go if he wants to make Serious Films, or to at least be taken seriously as a serious film director.  He all but appears onscreen and cries "WAR CRIMINAL!"   His overwhelming bias against the tenacious politician is about as subtle as a tin foil hat.  This does nothing for the movie, rather than preach to the faithful (note also that sequence halfway through the actual end credits).  At least Stone played fair with his George W. Bush bio.

Bale does good work.  He absorbed every video of Cheney he could and is eerily like him. Conveying opportunism and malevolence (evil?), yet with a soft spot for his family, particularly his lesbian daughter.  Steve Carrell is very Donald Rumsfeld-like, and Sam Rockwell is convincing as W.  Adams doesn't fare as well but seems dedicated enough.  The main problem is McKay, and neither his script or his direction are really worthy of this subject, which seems a bit early for film fodder, honestly.