Every election in the United States for the past thirty years has come down to exactly one question: Can the Republican Party scare Americans into voting against their own best interests? Years ago, the party of fear and hate decided not to go the optimism route favored by its savior, Ronald Reagan, and instead slowly, methodically, and consistently traded party integrity for political victories. Nobody understands this better than Dick Cheney, a villain as responsible as any other for the transformation from the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Trump.
For years, I thought of Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) as pure evil. How else to describe a man who deliberately misled an American public into starting two wars? That’s not politics; that’s the lyrics of “Sympathy for the Devil.” Writer/director Adam McKay says my perception is wrong; Cheney isn’t necessarily evil … he’s something perhaps worse: completely amoral. There is no bridge Dick wouldn’t cross to achieve more power, and the Cheney biopic Vice is McKay’s brilliantly argued cinematic thesis.
It’s important to remember that W.’s cabinet was among the most experienced in history. Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell) had been playing this game for decades. As these two were instrumental in destroying the US economy with their supply-sided war games, America took from the W. presidency that experience wasn’t necessarily a good thing … which leads to the current cabinet of wall-to-wall politically infantile swamp things. Another fine lesson learned, America! I digress. Early on, a young Dick Cheney decides to attach himself to Rumsfeld because of the latter’s candor that the intern job is crap, but “if you have a hard-on for power,” this is the place to be. It is at that moment that Cheney decides he’s a Republican.
Shortly afterwards, the most subtle and poignant moment of Cheney’s career occurs – Rumsfeld emerges from a talk with Henry Kissinger and the usually taciturn Cheney doesn’t know the current play. He questions to his boss, “Ummmmm … what do we believe?” To which Rumsfeld laughs out loud. Yup. That is exactly the point; there wasn’t just a vacuum of power, there was a vacuum of ideas and ideals. After Nixon departed and took all his tainted people with him, Cheney and Rumsfeld filled the vacuum with little more than a thirst for power. The lesson learned from Watergate was one not of virtuous politics, but entirely of political opportunism. What you believe doesn’t have any consequence; all that matters is power and how to get more.
Among other genius aspects of Vice is the editing. McKay’s film splices brief footage of Cheney fishing –about as active as the man ever gets— while moving in between key moments in Dick’s career. The footage seems dull and inconsequential until W. (Sam Rockwell) requests to have Cheney as his Vice. Cheney begs off the initial request and engineers instead a farcical “search committee” to identify a proper running mate. The committee eventually identifies himself and Cheney returns to W. with demands for his personal inclusion on the ticket, now on his terms, not W’s. Any independent observer could easily identify Cheney’s game – he never had any intention of finding another running mate for George W. Bush, he wanted to be a Vice with extensive unprecedented and unchecked power, and held out exactly until he got what he wanted. And in the moment that Sam Rockwell agrees, the scene is immediately juxtaposed with the wading Cheney finally hooking his fish. This is what great filmmaking looks like.
Christian Bale had a ball becoming the obese and tight-lipped icon. He gained 40 pounds for the role, making him even less recognizable than his Machinist role. One might call Cheney incapable of emotion, but that’s not quite right. On the overemotional scale from 1 to Brett Kavanaugh, Cheney tops out around a 1.5. There is some delightful black humor involved whenever Dick calmly (and frequently) announces he’s having a heart attack. Not to be outdone, Amy Adams is fantastic as kingmaker Lynne Cheney. Several times during young Dick’s dickery, she slaps him into shape. This is where Vice becomes hardest to watch – we know that if Lynne just lets young Dick fail on his own, our world in 2018 becomes a better place. It’s like watching young Voldemort and secretly hoping he dies in the orphanage.
One thing I really loved about Vice was the commitment to fact. When the movie fully admits it doesn’t know exactly what happened at a key moment in history, it tells us such and then guesses. This may sound contradictory given the subject matter, but the film made sure to give credit exactly where credit is due when it had facts at hand. For instance, the common conservative rhetoric places the creation of ISIS at Barack Obama’s feet. This is an intentional fallacy, and an easy one to reach as ISIS made its biggest headlines during the Obama presidency (for obvious reason). As laid out cleanly in the Vice run up to Iraq War II, ISIS was most certainly created under Cheney’s watch, and enabled by the Cheney/W. rhetoric. It was the Obama administration, NOT W. or Trump, that finally happened upon the best way to defeat ISIS: take away their money.
Each Oscar season one film emerges that is simply smarter than every other film of the year. Vice is that film. There are two moments of unique-yet-apropos highbrow hilarity that I won’t delve into within this review. Both make the film with watching by themselves. I fault Vice only for a conclusion that says Dick Cheney came out of a deathbed to sway a representative election for his daughter; Wyoming is as red as states get and this woman has the name “Cheney.” Those folks don’t give a crap how unwarranted our invasions of the Middle East are nor how Republican policy trashed the economy, so imagining Liz Cheney needed Lord Vader’s help to win is a stretch; other than that, this is a near perfect film and one of the best in 2018.
♪Please allow me to go recuse myself
I’m a man of stealth and chaste
I’ve been around to spread long, long fear
Sent many a GI’s soul to waste
I was round when Tricky Dick
Went down in a burning flame
Made damn sure me and Rummy
Picked up slack and spread the blame♫
Rated R, 132 Minutes
Director: Adam McKay
Writer: Adam McKay
Genre: Describing our current Hell
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People genuinely saddened by where American politics has gone
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of W.
♪ Parody Inspired by “Sympathy for the Devil”
Editor’s note: I would be remiss in not pointing out that Bush-disgraced general Colin Powell represents the best Tyler Perry role in ages; it is remarkable how much more likable Tyler is when not contributing to a film he wrote or directed or both.
