W. – DVD

Description

Author: Josh Brolin

Brand: Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada

Format: NTSC

Release Date: 10-02-2009

Details: Amazon.caOliver StonesW. is similar to his other movies about American presidents (JFK,Nixon), which is to say these films are much more about Stones imagined versions of reported events than they are alleged reenactments. As such,W. is Stones case for what he sees as the absurdity of George W. Bushs ascendance to the White House and especially the arrogant blunder of the Iraq War. Josh Brolin is very good as the miscreant son of George H. W. Bush (James Cromwell), Vice President to Ronald Reagan and 41st president of the United States. Adrift in a sea of booze and squandered opportunities, the younger Bush is largely driven by a need for his disapproving fathers love and respect, which never truly arrives. Becoming a hatchet man for Bush Sr.s administration, W (as his wife, Laura–played by Elizabeth Banks–call him) meets Karl Rove (Toby Jones) and heads toward the Texas governorship, despite his fathers preference that the more golden son, Jeb, get all the familys support in his Florida gubernatorial bid. Told in broken chronology,W. focuses on Bushs post-9/11 path to waging a preventive war in Iraq despite no hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction to justify it. The major players in Ws administration–Rove, Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright), Condoleeza Rice (Thandie Newton), and especially Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss)–all participate in closed meetings that look and sound like every investigative account by the New York Times or Bob Woodward about the administrations inner workings leading up to the war. Much of this is quite fascinating if a little weird (Newtons performance is indeed strange), but the drama is often powerful, particularly around Powells resistance to the rising tide for a supposedly slam-dunk war. A number of the films key performances, besides Brolins, are very strong, especially Cromwell, Jones, Wright, Dreyfuss and Bruce McGill as George Tenet.–Tom Keogh

UPC: 057373203538

EAN: 0057373203538

Languages: English

Binding: DVD

Item Condition: New