And for the other 78? Beverly Hills Chihuahua holds more appeal.
As portrayed by No Country for Old Men's Josh Brolin, the lame-duck president is a carousing muddler who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth and a big chip on his shoulder: the constant disapproval of his dad, George H.W. (the tall, scowling James Cromwell).
Flashing back to Bush Jr.'s frat-boy days at Yale, his short-lived stint as an oil rigger, his unsuccessful run for a Texas congressional seat, his fateful meeting with a pretty librarian named Laura (Elizabeth Banks), his boozing and skirt-chasing and ownership of baseball's Texas Rangers, W. offers a failed mix of political satire, psycho-biography, SNL-style mimicry, and Shakespearean tragedy.
Yes, the gang's all here: Vice President Dick Cheney (an eerie approximation from Richard Dreyfuss); Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (Thandie Newton - she doesn't say much, but her curious head-nods trigger a few of W.'s far-between laughs); political operative Karl Rove (Toby Jones); Donald "Rummy" Rumsfield (Scott Glenn); Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright). There are Oval Office confabs, Cabinet meetings, and group meanders across the ranch, with Bush looking alternately antsy, bored, bewildered. And while W. mostly centers on the "Decider's" decision to invade Iraq and its aftermath - no Katrina here, no financial crisis, thanks - the film nonethless drags on forever.
W.'s problems are manifold. Stone comes at the project with his own dogged political views, and that's his right (and his left). But unlike the filmmaker's previous stabs at presidential biopic-ing and conspiracy theorizing - JFK and Nixon - this one doesn't have the luxury of historical perspective. President Bush is still in office, after all, and the dust - and Iraqi sand - won't settle for years to come.
