2018 | Dir. Adam McKay | 132 Minutes
"When a monotone bureaucratic Vice President came to power, we hardly noticed."
An alcoholic college dropout makes a promise to his ambitious girlfriend to turn his life around. He lands an internship at White House and eventually maneuvers his way to become the Secretary of Defense, his sights set on the Oval Office, eager to utilize an obscure political theory to attain an unprecedented amount of power. As his dream of becoming president slips away, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presents itself when he is offered the job of Vice President.
Writer/Director Adam McKay's follow up to 2015's The Big Short is an entertaining but wildly meandering evisceration of George W. Bush's enigmatic and ruthless Vice President. While the film's mysterious narrator eloquently states the picture's mission to examine exactly where a man like Dick Cheney originates, the movie never quite delivers on that promise. During its first half, the audience is presented with an unassuming dirt bag who becomes more callous as he successfully makes his way up the political ladder, but his motivations as dramatized by McKay's narrative never seem to go beyond an unquenchable thirst for power with occasional asides suggesting that he is also driven by the whims and ambitions of his wife Lynne. Perhaps by design, the second half is woefully unfocused, sorely lacking anything resembling a coherent emotional throughline.
It's an understatement to say that the overarching story is less than cinematic, but thankfully McKay's comedic sensibilities and the surreal storytelling structure of the picture serve to really liven things up. Stylistically similar to The Big Short, complex concepts (this time, political concepts), and sometimes the Cheney's character traits and backhanded strategies, are explained in humorous asides that are as funny as they are grim. However, the concluding punchlines doubling as major dark revelations surrounding the Bush Administration may seem underwhelming to anyone who paid close attention to news headlines at the time.
Christian Bale's Dick Cheney impression is uncanny and appropriately subdued. In that sense, it should be noted that the role does not require Bale to emote in the slightest as it is very much a purely physical transformation. Ever the force to be reckoned with, Amy Adams turns in another praiseworthy performance as Cheney's headstrong wife and prime motivator Lynne. Steve Carell is captivatingly despicable as the morally bankrupt Donald Rumsfeld. Sam Rockwell's screen time is limited but he is eerily believable as George W. Bush. The film also features Alison Pill and Lily Rabe as Cheney's daughters Mary and Liz, Tyler Perry as Colin Powell, and Alfred Molina, Naomi Watts, and Jesse Plemmons in minor but memorable roles.
Creative narrative structure, clever asides, and key bits of exposition delivered through fun featured cameos only carry Vice so far as it loses a considerable amount of steam during its back half. While it is an amusing and pointed indictment of the fundamental flaws within the American political system, the film's most glaring fault is that it doesn't have anything new or revelatory to say about Dick Cheney and the presidential administration he absolutely controlled.
FRAGMENTS
- Christian Bale gained 45 pounds to play Dick Cheney, reportedly eating lots of pies
- In one memorable sequence, Adam McKay compares the powers obtained through the Unitary Executive Theory to those of Galactus from Marvel Comics; McKay contributed to the script for Ant-Man and is rumored to be developing a film centered on Silver Surfer, Herald of Galactus
MCU CONNECTIONS
- Sam Rockwell (Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2)
- Alfred Molina (Otto Octavius in Spider-Man: No Way Home)
- Christian Bale (Gorr in Thor: Love and Thunder)
- Christian Bale (Gorr in Thor: Love and Thunder)
