Review: Vice

Narrated by a man who will only be identified at the end (played by Jesse Plemons), this is the story of political operator Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) who first served under Gerald Ford (a solid Bill Camp), and George H.W. Bush, before becoming the ruthless Vice President under George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell). It was largely Cheney who orchestrated the narrative that led America to invading Iraq. Amy Adams plays Cheney’s shrewd wife Lynne, Steve Carell plays Donald Rumsfeld, Tyler Perry is Colin Powell, and Alison Pill plays Cheney’s lesbian daughter Mary.

 

I didn’t like the look of this 2018 biopic from writer-director Adam McKay (whose best film is the action-comedy “The Other Guys”) from the trailer, with Christian Bale in particular looking more like fat Chevy Chase than Dick Cheney. Having now seen the film, Bale’s probably the only thing here that I didn’t have too much of a problem with. The director of just about every Will Ferrell vehicle ever made is wholly miscast tackling a political biopic, and delivers are film almost entirely filled with snarky biased bullshit. And I say that as a non-American who even if I were American would never have voted for Bush/Cheney in a million years. Bias is bias, even when it’s in a direction I find personal agreement with.

 

After about an hour we get to 9/11 and McKay decides he wants to take things seriously…for about five minutes, before going back to the same serio-comic disingenuousness. It’s stupid, sloppy, unconvincing, and wholly useless. McKay wants to be irreverent instead of simply telling the story and being good. Originality is useless in a biopic if you’re not actually going to paint things convincingly. Just look at the film’s narrative device. It features one of the more unique characters to play the film’s narrator, but it’s unable to be taken seriously because that character wasn’t around for any of the story, really. At least not first-hand. If the film were designed to be 100% comedy, I could almost excuse it. However it exists in the same film as scenes where Cheney shows an unwavering love and support for his daughter Mary. These are the only scenes in the entire film that actually have you feeling something positive towards the man, and they’re the only scenes that aren’t remotely snarky or derisive. It just goes to show that even a war-mongering arsehole can still be a pretty good dad. The rest of the time though, McKay is in full left-wing bias snark mode, and this left-winger was irritated beyond belief by it. Just tell us the damn story, dude. I already know how I feel about the politics of the man. The veteran comedy filmmaker can’t help but insert stupid jokey scenes like the one where Alfred Molina embarrasses himself as a maître ’d reading off war crimes and legal wrangling from a menu. The nadir comes midway when McKay gives us a juvenile meta-movie prank by throwing up fake end credits only to reveal it’s a joke. Seriously? In a story about this subject? We’re pulling that wannabe Monty Python nonsense? I love Python as much as the next person (possibly more), but I was incensed to see such meta bullshit employed in something like this.

 

When playing the younger Dick Cheney, Christian Bale looks…well, he looks like himself. However, once he gets to play the older, more familiar Cheney, he actually isn’t as Chevy Chase-like as I’d initially believed. Oh the physical resemblance is still there, but vocally and in regards to mannerisms Bale comes quite close capturing Cheney. You certainly don’t see Bale behind the makeup, which is a pretty important thing. Yes, it’s a very mechanical, method-y sort of performance (my main criticism with Bale as an actor, I always see the gears turning), but for the most part I didn’t really have a problem with him. Maybe he speaks a tad too slowly than the real guy, but that’s more of a nit-pick. Amy Adams is a really terrific actress but she’s absolutely nothing like Lynne Cheney from what I’ve seen and heard of the woman. Acting ability is obviously the most important thing, but I do find it’s difficult to buy into someone when they don’t look or sound like the real-life person they’re playing. So it’s not the best work of Adams’ career, but I’ll say her casting is more the problem than her actual performance as such. The character calls for a tougher, more hardened presence that I just don’t think Adams was the best person for. Sam Rockwell’s George Dubya Bush is a lot better than I’d feared from the trailers, and is certainly light years ahead of Josh Brolin’s work in Oliver Stone’s equally awful “W.”. I was worried he was gonna be a comedic buffoon (that joke has been played out by now), but he’s not that bad. He gives Dubya a little too much personality for my liking (Dubya’s not an especially entertaining or charismatic guy), but otherwise he’s actually OK and looks…a little like the man. If you squint.

 

The best performances come in some of the smaller roles by lesser-known actors playing lesser-known characters. Don McManus has been doing good character work for decades, and is easily one of the best things here as David Addington. Also more than acceptable are Justin Kirk as Scooter Libby, and Adam Bartley as Republican pollster Frank Luntz, he of the endless focus groups on Fox News shows like “Hannity”. The best performance comes from Alison Pill as Mary Cheney. Even if she’s not an exact replica of the woman, you’re in no doubt of who she’s playing, whereas the guy playing George H.W. Bush was only recognisable to me because the character gets introduced by name on-screen with a title card. On the other end of the scale we have the embarrassingly miscast Steve Carell playing Donald Rumsfeld like a hack-y stand-up comedian. The man always came across dry as toast to me. Even if this comedic side was/is actually true to the man, Carell (who has done good dramedy work before in “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Battle of the Sexes”) doesn’t for one moment try to convince as anyone other than himself in the part anyway. I did find it interesting than McKay is most savage in his scorn for Rumsfeld, whilst Rockwell’s Dubya at worst comes across like a puppet or useless figurehead. Tyler Perry is all wrong for Colin Powell, too. He doesn’t look or sound or behave like one thinks of Mr. Powell, and to be honest I don’t think Tyler Perry is a particularly good actor (He was fine in “Gone Girl” but that wasn’t a terribly challenging role).

 

Even if you can somehow get past the tonal, casting, and acting issues here you’re still left with a story that frankly isn’t terribly interesting. Cheney, whether you like or hate the guy, just isn’t a very interesting guy. I’m sorry but it’s hard to care about a film featuring an arsehole with no charisma at the centre. Even an arsehole with no charisma who proudly stands up for his gay daughter.

 

A snarky lightweight biopic biased to the left is as useful to me as a snarky lightweight biopic biased to the right. I frankly can’t stand Cheney, but for the most part this film didn’t have me on side at all and I found it hard to believe a word of it. I felt like I was watching some kind of strange piss-take of a Cheney biopic. An unconvincing, awkward and flippant biopic that doesn’t try very hard to convince and features a mostly uncomfortable cast. Christian Bale and Sam Rockwell aren’t bad (though the former is far too tall), a couple of the minor players are good, but it’s overall a little embarrassing, and completely useless.

 

Rating: D+