Vice – 2018
This was a strange movie, and I’m having a difficult time trying to categorize it. It was a political drama that was presented in a strange mix of different styles, all cut together to create a unique tapestry. It followed the professional career of the politician Dick Cheney, the most powerful Vice President in U.S. history, wonderfully played by Christian Bale. The director, Adam McKay, used a number of risky cinematic tricks to make the otherwise confusing, and I’m sorry to say, for someone like me, dull subject matter more interesting and understandable.
For example, at one point, in order to illustrate the point that at times, Cheney was like a political predator who was going in for the kill, the quick image of a lioness in Africa taking down a gazelle came up on the screen. At another time, during a conversation in which Dick and Lynne seem to be plotting a power grab, they start speaking in Shakespearean language and quoting lines from Macbeth. It was all metaphor and likening. There were also scenes in which the actors would break the fourth wall and speak directly to the viewers. And near the beginning of the movie, whenever a new character would be introduced, the image on the screen would freeze while dramatic or action music would be underscored, all to emphasize the introduction, as if to say, “Get a good look at this guy. He is a political bad-ass, and he is going to be important.” It had the feel of a Quinten Tarantino film.
But then the style would shift again and I would be watching something that looked like actual news footage. Many times it actually was real. And then the style would change yet again, and I would be watching a documentary. Then it continued to change, this time to a parody or farce. I recall one interesting scene in which the characters were sitting around a table at a fancy restaurant, where the waiter was describing dishes such as morally ambiguous political moves or policies. The politicians said with delight, “Sounds delicious!”
The movie was a hodge-podge of these, and many other, tricks of the film media that I would normally roll my eyes at as cheap cinematic stunts. There was even a strange fake-out scene forty-nine minutes into the film, in which Dick Chaney’s political career seemed to have reached a favorable conclusion. They started the triumphant credit music and actually started rolling the cast credits and character epilogues, explaining what happened to them in the end. But everything stopped and we are treated to a new stage of Cheney’s career. But the use of those kinds of tricks was the style, and it was consistent throughout the entire film. And again, I have to concede that they helped to keep an otherwise boring film interesting.
The movie seemed to imply that all the featured politicians were either power-hungry, vicious sharks with no morals to speak of, as in the case of Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, brilliantly played by Steve Carell, utter morons, like George W. Bush Jr., played by Sam Rockwell, or cowed political tools like Colin Powell, played by Tyler Perry. There was also Don McManus playing Cheney’s legal council and chief of staff, David Addington. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Amy Adams as Cheney’s wife Lynne. She was portrayed, at times, as even more self-serving and, dare I say, heartless than Dick, as she spurs her husband on to higher and higher levels of political power. But then in the next scene, she plays the sweet and loving wife who is concerned for her husband’s health. Her character was a little difficult to interpret. And I have to mention that Bale once again transformed himself and turned in a phenomenal performance. He was barely recognizable under all the makeup and extra weight.
Despite this movie’s flights of fancy in the way the story was told, they claimed, more than once, that to the best of their ability, they made everything completely factual. As far as I can tell, it was all pretty true. But it was also clear that the filmmakers had their own agenda. Were they characters truly as avaricious as the movie suggests, or was there something more to it? It is actually hard to tell if the movie was pro liberal or conservative. In telling the story of how Cheney vastly overstepped the normal powers of the position of Vice President during George W’s Presidency, having only taken the position because he saw Bush Jr. as an idiot, how he directly influenced the President to enter the Iraq war, how he was indirectly responsible for the formation of the terrorist organization, ISIS, did the film portray Cheney as a hero or a villain? It is hard to tell.
But a piece of that question was answered in Cheney’s final scene. He breaks the fourth wall and explains all his actions in a monologue that bears repeating. “I can feel your incriminations and your judgment, and I am fine with that. You want to be loved? Go be a movie star. The world is as you find it. You’ve gotta deal with that reality that there are monsters in this world. We saw 3,000 innocent people burned to death by those monsters, yet you object when I refuse to kiss those monsters on the cheek and say ‘pretty please.’ You answer me this, what terrorist attack would you have let go forward so you wouldn’t seem like a mean and nasty fella? I will not apologize for keeping your family safe. And I will not apologize for doing what needed to be done so that your loved ones could sleep peacefully at night. It has been my honor to be your servant. You chose me. And I did what you asked.”