W.

Josh Brolin does a powerhouse performance as our 43rd President in the biopic, W. Oliver Stone has long stood as one of the most liberal and controversial filmmakers of our time. JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors, and Natural Born Killers are prime examples. So when he decided to take on the conservative George W. Bush, one would expect a complete trashing of Bush in this film. Oddly enough, that's nowwhere near the case.

Stone makes the film in a bit of a weird energy. The mood, pace, and editing shift with Bush's age. So in the scenes of his 20's, 30's, the editing is quick, rapid-fire, and over-saturated. Then in the 1990's and his presidency, cinematography darkens, and the editing slows down. But the one constant in the film? Josh Brolin. Brolin doesn't just act like Bush, for 2 hours he IS Bush.

It intertwines between Bush's young fraternity days and then jumps back and forth to his Cabinet meetings. The film works its way up to modern days, including Bush's drunken times, meeting his future wife, Laura, and his attempts to live up to his father. This father-son dynamic is used a bit too much in the film, and becomes a bit too sympathetic. This is shown in a dream sequence at the end that feels a bit arbitrary.

The cast is great everywhere. But most especially Brolin as Bush and Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell. Wright inhabits the role actually pretty fiercely, as he plays Powell as becoming increasingly agitated with the policies around him. I wish we saw more of him. But Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney is actually genius, it's a great idea, although he's on for little more than 5 minutes.

And so the film ends with a dream sequence of Bush in a baseball field. The ball is pitched, and Bush is looking around, trying to find it. Actually a pretty nice metaphor. B+