Oliver Stone is a talented filmmaker. Many of the critics have been saying Stone plays it to safe but based on his career it makes sense. Sometimes he hits the nail on the head (Platoon, Born on the 4th of July, & Wall Street) other times he goes way overboard (Natural Born Killers, Nixon, & Alexander). However, after the huge failure of Alexander he rained it in a lot. World Trade Center was a down the middle as you can get. So in makes sense that despite the controversial nature of current president, Stone is not in the maverick mode of his popular period. Accordingly W. plays it fairly straight. There is none of the hyper cutting that was in films like Killers, U-Turn, or Any Given Sunday. This give some his films the feeling of to much time in the kitchen. Part of this may be due from the fact that the film was shot just a few months ago and finished in under a year (which almost never happens). In addition, he largely skips the leaps in truth that were in films like Nixon & JFK. Instead, you get a character study and a traditional biopic.
A customer at work asked me if W. was funny, my response was its funny like watching someone get punched in the face, and that person is you. The film is entertaining and keeps moving for most of the time. Brolin is great and totally believable as a person we have all seen a lot of, which is really tuff. I enjoyed the film. Still, I can’t really see wanting to watch it again. I don’t think it’s a must see, but it’s certainly not an embarrassment. Stone definitely catches the feeling of many people in America now. I’m curious to see how everyone will feel about Bush in few years.
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