So, I Saw ‘Vice’ Today…

Liked it, didn’t love it.  If the trailer makes you think it’s gonna be full of laffs, you’ll be disappointed. If you didn’t know what a monster Cheney was, you will after you’ve seen it. Most of the performances were of the ‘caricature’ variety.  Yes, Christian Bale effectively inhabited Cheney, but Cheney’s emotional range, to put it mildly was almost non-existent. Amy Adams’ relatively sympathetic rendering of Lynne Cheney didn’t draw me in, but at least was more than skin-deep. Steve Carell was a very effective Rummy, and the guy who played Wolfowitz was a dead-ringer for that lupine lowlife. Most of the other performances were pretty superficial.  I don’t know who played Gerald Ford, but they sure missed the mark with him.

I learned (or at least remembered) a little bit from the movie.  The non-existent Iraqi link that Cheney put into Colin Powell’s speech to the UN was pure Cheney and especially despicable. That was the link that justified the war. (BTW, I booed when the Real HRC made her brief appearance, shilling, of course, for the war.)

I found the movie, though, to be a curious combination of docudrama, biopic,  real footage, liberal prop, and caricature that never cohered as a whole. There were also two profoundly unfunny ‘comedy’ sequences–one featuring a waiter with mayhem on the menu, and the other having something to do with penises.  We’re talking WWE unfunny. I guess the movie is what you’d expect with both Brad Pitt and Will Ferrell among the producers.  If you want to scratch that Cheney-hate itch, by all means see it. Just don’t expect a really good movie.  And, if you saw it, what did you think?