W. - Half assed stab gone wrong.

Here we go again - a renowned director (undeservedly so in my opinion, but who am I to argue), a brilliant cast and a complete piece of shit as the next installment in Stone's presidential series. Stone is obviously after the cheap publicity that would inevitably come from his choice of such a controversial subject as George W. Bush beyond any doubt is, so I will try to spell his name (Stone's, not W's) right as not to disappoint him. 

The main problem with this lukewarm puddle of piss of a movie is that it is trying to leave us with the impression that it is an unbiased and impartial bio picture. Naturally, this is far from being easy, considering the long and wide trail of stupid if not outright retarded stuff Dubya has left behind, and the several half-hearted personal attacks clearly show that Stone didn't manage to avoid the trap of slipping in his own agenda. The final result is a movie that tries not to (God forbid) irritate anyone, but ironically pisses off with its half-assed position Dubya supporters and haters alike. The former because of the frivolous (yeah, yeah, artistic freedom, whatever) treatment of the facts and several of Dubya's most famous quotes which make him look like a complete idiot (duh, like we had doubts about that after the bold statement that 'I believe men and fish can coexist peacefully'), which definitely defeats the intended impartiality of the movie. The latter because of the guarded attitude which they would no doubt perceive as way too delicate and gentle, if not even whitewashing. 

Another irritating feature is the amateurish psychology - the poor Dubya, tired of being the family's black sheep and fuck up, so desperately craves his paternal authority figure's approval that he goes to his own war to get it right this time. Lame. And worse, cynical, we're talking a war which cost the most conservative numbers estimate at $3 trillion, 2 million of refugees and tens of thousands deaths. We are supposed to feel for him, see, he can't accomplish shit on his own, because he's been born with the proverbial silver spoon and everything is being taken care of by his father. Lame. He'd like nothing better than to run a baseball team. Really? Then why the fuck sit in the White House for eight fucking years? LAAAAAAAAAME!!! He's a good guy really, just not the sharpest knife in the drawer, prone to bad influence, so Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rove steer him wherever they want to. What the fuck? Let's resort to Reductio ad Hitlerum just to further emphasize Stone's ineptitude at delivering a message - see, Herr Adolf must have been a good guy too, blah-blah sensitive soul, being painter and all, it must have been the bad, bad Goebbels, Borman and Goering. Same goes for Uncle Joe and his evil mastermind Beria, right? Now, I wouldn't give a flying fuck if he's an incompetent weak-minded and absent-willed retard, if he weren't Commander-in-Chief of the world's strongest military force, but that makes him far more dangerous than a monkey with a hand grenade. I couldn't help but notice that Stone also very, very carefully avoided raising painful subjects as Katrina, the financial crisis, the whole Patriot Act, and only brushed on torture tactics, without mentioning Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib. Bottom line? Stone's trying to mindfuck the audience is just as delicate and graceful as a sneaking elephant. 

There is a single strong point of the movie though, and this is Josh Brolin. His reincarnation as W. was amazing and incredibly convincing, I almost forgot I'm not watching the actual W., too bad his talent was washed away in the tsunami of bullshit coming from the screen. This movie had its balls crushed because of Stone's patethic attempt to keep it sitting on the fence.