Who is the Audience for This Movie?

People interested in movies that are about the life of a prominent figure.

What I Liked About This Movie

Casting actors that look like the real life people being portrayed is what would first come to mind when making a movie like W. for most directors. Stone instead chose people that could look somewhat close to their real life counterparts but more importantly would be able to nail the persona’s and mannerisms that are important to make their depictions realistic. Most notable would be Josh Brolin’s take on Bush. He may not look like Bush but he does a great job at imitating him.

As with every movie Stone makes it is very visually pleasing with a few epic looking shots. It was nice that they even spliced Josh Brolin into archived footage of Bush to make the portrayal feel a little more authentic.

What Didn’t Work For Me

Stone often makes his films needlessly overly dramatic and in this movie he does it again. The best example of this is the dream sequences of Bush in an empty baseball field that appears periodically. I get its purpose it just did not seem to fit well with the rest of the movie. Tone wise I kind of wished while watching the movie there would have been a clear choice made to either make this movie a drama or a satire. As a drama it comes off fairly bland and as a satire it does not really go far enough.

I personally think this movie was made too soon. The aftermath of the president leaving the white house would have been a far more interesting end to the movie.

Should You Watch This Movie?

Even though it has quite a few faults if you are American you still might find it interesting.

My Rating (Out of 13)