Regardless of your political bent, VICE is the most entertaining, funny and horrifying take on a political figure in years.
Christian Bale is flawless and brilliant, transforming with a 45lb weight gain into Dick Cheney. From his early years of aimless drinking to the Vice Presidency, Bale embodies the man, or at least writer/director Adam McKay's take on him.
McKay showed he had post "Anchorman" drama chops with "The Big Short", but he's unleashed here, throwing comedy, direct-to-viewer asides and a ferocity of pace that serves the film really well.
Sam Rockwell is an endearingly innocent and paralyzingly dimwitted W, Steve Carell shines as Donald Rumsfeld, Tyler Perry is dead serious as Colin Powell and Amy Adams steals the movie as the REAL power in the Cheney camp, Lynne Cheney.
Like Oliver Stone's stunning "JFK", the movie pummels you with facts, versions of events, behind-the-scenes personal scenes and perfect recreations of moments in history we know all too well like 9-11.
Like JFK, it's one man's vision of those events that you dont have to 100% agree with to enjoy as entertainment.
Every time Bale drops to the floor for another heart attack, it's handled like those opening moments in the early seasons of SNL when Chevy Chase's Gerald Ford would fall off ladders or trip over furniture on another trip to the floor.
The entire cast is terrific, funny and profane, with Rockwell and Bale leading the way, but Adams is the real powerhouse, owning Lynne Cheney, whose handling of her own daughter as a liability to her husband's career is heartbreaking, offering Bale a much needed opportunity to show some glimmer of empathy in the Vice President.
Watching Cheney redefine the power and role of the office, it's a horrifying observation on power and opportunistic drive that reshapes the world's political climate.
I loved Stone's JFK and have watched it again many times over the past few decades, but I have no idea how much of it is true.
The same could be said for VICE, but it's entertaining as hell, very well acted and moves like a bullet veering hard to the left.
It gets a A.
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