{"id":6682,"date":"2018-12-21T10:13:10","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T15:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=6682"},"modified":"2019-01-04T23:39:19","modified_gmt":"2019-01-05T04:39:19","slug":"review-vice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=6682","title":{"rendered":"Review: VICE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Christian Bale delivers an award-worthy performance as Vice President Dick Cheney.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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With \u201cVice,\u201d the spirited, stunt director Adam McKay, who brought his energetic brand of filmmaking to \u201cThe Big Short\u201d in 2015, tackles a singular, infamous subject in the former Vice President Dick Cheney. This time around, the film is more focused, but ultimately will have conservative viewers frustrated, especially as the characterizations of significant Republican figures tips over into outright parody. \u201cVice\u201d is a movie that will play best to already converted, folks who never had any respect for the mercurial Vice President, or worse, always despised him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christian Bale playing Vice President Dick Cheney.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

McKay\u2019s take on Cheney\u2019s life follows him from his boozing college years through his time in the White House. We meet the future, shadowy leader (played with uncanny commitment by Bale) at a very low time in his life. After flunking out of an Ivy League and being arrested for driving under the influence, his wife Lynne (Amy Adams) lays down the law\u2014get sober, get a career, or she\u2019s leaving. It works, and Cheney reshapes his life around a new ideology, which politics aside, driven by Cheney\u2019s unique talent for discretion. The guy is a low talker\u2014a political whisperer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McKay speculates as to Cheney\u2019s early motivations, leaving us with the impression that his political philosophy is the product of ambition and luck, rather than deep-seated conservative beliefs. However, there is a point when Lynne takes over one of the early campaigns and demonstrates what the two believe, regardless whether it is politically correct. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Vice and his private thoughts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The mercenary side of politics does rear its ugly head, however, when they are confronted by their daughter\u2019s sexual identity and positions on gay marriage. It\u2019s this part of the film that seems a little forced. Allison Pill is well cast as the Cheney daughter Mary. But she\u2019s depicted as all weepy emotion, flailing her arms and shedding tears that sink deep into the Vice\u2019s heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem with this part of the narrative is that it\u2019s played largely for one hypocritical moment in the film involving older sister Liz (Lily Rabe), who\u2019s running for Congress. When the uncomfortable decision to oppose gay marriage is made, it will enrage viewers. But I thought immediately that there is no real way to know exactly how this gut-wrenching decision actually went down. Was it the Vice that made the final call? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A powerful twosome, “Vice” depicts a strong Cheney marriage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Given Lynne\u2019s overarching presence in guiding his career in politics, I suspect that the women in his life were more a factor in how he made decisions than anyone else. McKay gives us this concept in scenes involving Lynne, but the children are shown as bratty and one-note. There is a moment in the situation room following the events of 9\/11 in which we see Lynne touching her husband for support\u2014the two made an imposing team. McKay grants the Cheneys that moment, but his complete distaste for their ideology on every level permeates the entire film\u2014infecting it with a slant that must be accepted for the movie to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suppose that understanding a man that is so very private and insular was next to impossible for McKay, who both directs and writes here. He does his best from his perspective, however, his handling of facts is clearly clouded by liberal ideology. And to his credit, he acknowledges this in an end credit epilogue that is both self-aware and funny. Reaching for the humor in what is an otherwise weighty historical footnote is McKay\u2019s masterstroke. And \u201cVice\u201d proves to be hugely entertaining, provided, however, that you don\u2019t take the film as a history lesson. This isn\u2019t meant to be a documentary, rather, it\u2019s a narrative film influenced by real world events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Steve Carell plays Donald Rumsfeld.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But is \u201cVice\u201d parody or something else? Casting is of the stunt variety. Steve Carell, who was so good in \u201cThe Big Short,\u201d returns to work with McKay here playing Donald Rumsfeld. It\u2019s not a performance that casts the former Secretary of Defense and former White House Chief of Staff in a favorable light. Carell is positively tweaked, almost to a cartoonish degree. Like others in the film, he has been made to look the part, but the substance is constantly on the edge of being one big joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sam Rockwell does a good impersonation of former President George W. Bush.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And the parody aspect is approached as well with Sam Rockwell\u2019s turn as George W. Bush, depicted as completely clueless. Rockwell certainly has the look of the former president down, but everything about the performance is exaggerated. The typical Bush mannerisms lean toward SNL great Dana Carvey\u2019s impersonation of W\u2019s father, and none of it is the least bit flattering. McKay\u2019s commitment to his jokey, energetic form of filmmaking prevents him from deftly giving sentimentality to the subjects with whom he dislikes. It\u2019s almost a complete lack of empathy, in which he\u2019s bailed out by the central performance\u2014a moment when Bale bows his head in disgust, demonstrating shame in the only way the very private man could. Regardless, there\u2019s no doubt that he has little love for Cheney, Bush, and certainly not Rumsfeld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Amy Adams plays Lynne Cheney the guiding force in the Vice’s life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One thing is clear, McKay takes advantage of the sandbox he\u2019s been given by Hollywood. A similar approach that skewered President Obama, for example, would not likely find funding for feature motion picture treatment. Humor in cinema apparently belongs to one side of the political aisle, and McKay knows it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his review, Jonathan questions whether director Adam McKay has made a parody or something else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1145,1148,1143,1138,1144,1140,1139,1141,50,1149,620,1142,1147,1146,1137],"class_list":["post-6682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-adam-mckay","tag-amy-adams","tag-conservative","tag-dick-chaney","tag-liberal","tag-liz-chaney","tag-lynne-chaney","tag-mary-chaney","tag-movie-review","tag-parody","tag-politics","tag-republican","tag-steve-carell","tag-the-big-short","tag-vice","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6682"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6745,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6682\/revisions\/6745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}