Vice

Well Happy New Year to everyone!

Before I talk about this movie, I wanted everyone to know that I have been working on some reviews. The one thing about them is that they are TV shows and a video game so they are taking some time for me to get through them. I do have some really great ideas and thoughts on these shows and I'm looking forward to sharing them with you, as you know they just take a little bit more time then movies that I can usually knock out the day after if not the night after I see it. I hope to get those out before the end of the weekend.

But I am actually really glad this is the first movie of the year because this was one of the movies I was looking forward to over the holiday season. Actually, had Mary Poppins Returns not come out, I think my family would have gone to this movie instead. But I finally got to see it tonight and boy do I have thoughts.

Vice is the biopic centering around Dick Cheney (played by Christian Bale) and chronicles the rise of his mysterious career from his humble beginnings as a drunk in Wyoming, all the way through his career in Washington up to the end of his career as Vice President of the United States under George W Bush.

The movie was directed by Adam McKay who you may know as the guy who directed Anchorman, but his more relevant director credit to this movie is his recent success, The Big Short.

Now if you've seen The Big Short, you'll know exactly what you're getting into with Vice. Vice follows a similar format. A comedic, very self aware style of storytelling that keeps things relatively light hearted but for sure doesn't shy away from the reality of the message that the movie is trying to get across.

The difference though is that The Big Short had a very poignant message about the financial crisis in 2008, with Vice, it's a little bit more complicated.

Honestly, the strongest part of the movie is the first hour. The movie starts in 1963 and tracks Cheney's career as an intern, to eventually becoming the Secretary of Defense under George W H Bush all the way up to when George W Bush offers him the job of Vice President. Along the way, you learn about the people he's closest to. His wife Lynne (played by Amy Adams), his daughters Liz and Mary (played by Lily Rabe and Allison Pill respectively), and the people he worked with like Donald Rumsfeld (played by Steve Carrell), Scooter Libby (played by Justin Kirk) and of course, eventually, George W. Bush (played by Sam Rockwell).

First and foremost, every character in this movie is beautifully cast. Steve Carrell is hilarious and brilliant as Rumsfeld. Amy Adams is great as Lynne Cheney. Sam Rockwell is hilarious playing a role that really paints George W Bush as quite a moron, so just be ready for that. And there are just a lot of other actors involved in really interesting roles. Both Alison Pill and Lilly Rabe do a great job, Tyler Perry plays Colin Powell which I never thought would work, but it worked. All of them come together to create this political atmosphere that is just wildly entertaining and cut throat. If you're a fan of House of Cards, you'll feel right at home in this world, and at the front of it all, you have Christian Bale as Dick Cheney.

I have a lot of things I could say negative about this movie, but the one thing that makes it great is Christian Bale as Dick Cheney. I swear, Christian Bale might be one of the best actors of the modern times because he has just had a wide variety of roles that he's played and he gets lost in almost every single one of them. You lose track that this is an actor and not the actual Dick Cheney he does such a good job.

The thing I thought was really interesting about this movie was the fact that while its pretty apparent from the trailers and the start of the movie that Dick Cheney is supposed to be a bad guy in the eyes of the audience, they still make him a sympathetic character. You still like him and you still are super interested in his journey, especially in the first half of the movie. Part of that is the writing, but I think a big part of it is Bale's performance.

One other side note is how committed he gets to his roles. If you've watched him over the years, he'll go from super thin in the Machinist, to buff as hell in Batman, to kind of a chubby dude in both this movie and American Hustle.

I feel like it's a little bit cliche to praise such a well known actor, but I think his fame is pretty well deserved and it shows in this movie.

Bottom line is, this movie is a lot of fun. If you liked The Big Short and liked the comedy, the political intrigue, and the information that they convey in a really funny way, you'll like this movie... However...

The movie stumbles a little bit, especially around the time when it talks about Bush asking Cheney to be his VP, and his time as VP. By no means is it bad. I just had a few issues with it that kept it from being potentially the best film of the year.

The first is the accuracy. Now the movie addresses this from the get go. They say this is a true story, or as about a true story as they could manage considering that Dick Cheney is a very secretive person. Up to the hour mark, the movie was telling a biopic. Sure they could be some inaccuracies, but it felt like a good narrative. Then in the Bush administration it becomes less biographical and delves into seemingly conspiracy theory territory. And I'll say it, I believe that some of the stuff portrayed and said in this movie probably happened. Often times its the craziest stuff that you don't think is true that is actually very true, but this movie has a message and I get the feeling that they took a lot of liberties with this movie to make a poignant point.

The movie utilizes very similar techniques that you saw in The Big Short. Scenes that aren't actually happening but are metaphors for what is actually happening. In the big short, they were cut aways or addressing the 4th wall to explain things that might be confusing or complex, in this movie is just seems like there were a bunch of guys in a dark room pulling all the strings surrounded by people who either had no idea or didn't have the intregity to stand up for what was right.

While the movie tries to make Cheney slightly sympathetic, it also makes him his evil mastermind puppet master that I have a hard time believing they didn't take some liberties with that.

The other huge issue I had was the jumps this movie takes to pretty much try and blame Cheney for the problems we face in our political climate. There's a montage near the end that has this confusing montage of horrible things happening in the world and somewhat tying it back to Cheney and I had to just pause and say that that's just too simplistic.

And while I'm at it, I need to talk about the ending.

This movie was pretty solid up until the last 20 minutes because I swear the third act of this movie just disappeared. It's treking along, you feel as though the climax is coming, and then suddenly the movie does a huge time jump and kind of stumbles into a confusing, seemingly politically biased ending that just had me a little confused.

And that's the issue with biopics, Dick Cheney never really had his third act comeuppance, nor did he ascend to anything that would really tie this link he apparently had to all the evils of the world liberals might believe he was the root cause of. And I'm not saying this from a political stand point, I'm talking as a political science major who has studied a lot of the characters in the movie.

I mean up front, if you were going into this movie thinking it was going to be praising Dick Cheney, you're going to be in for a big surprise. There is somewhat of a bias. Some of it is pulling out facts, but some of it is really painting Cheney (and frankly Republicans) in the darkest light they can. This is also coming from somebody who knows that Cheney was involved in some dark shit and some of the stuff in this movie is probably true.

But whereas The Big Short almost felt like a documentary with facts and a compelling argument to be made, I don't think anybody is going to watch this film and come out with any differing ideas on Dick Cheney, or the Bush Administration that they didn't already have.

 That's not to say you won't enjoy this film, regardless of political beliefs. As I've said, there's some great performances in this movie, it brings to light some actors and events of history that you might not have known were happening right underneath your nose, and the styling of Adam McKay is really spectacular, making him a director that I will always enjoy watching.

But I do think the issues do bring this movie down quite a bit. I think this could have been a really interesting look at a mysterious guy (and it is), but as it is, its a pretty entertaining movie with some structural issues and blatant messaging that you may go for or you may not. It's for sure a movie I will want to check out again, and I do recommend you go and see it, make a decision for yourself.

But those are my thoughts on Vice. What did you think? Did you enjoy the film? Did you think it was biased or am I the exact people the "post credit" scene is talking about. (Don't leave right away, there is a funny scene in the middle of the credits). You tell me. Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!