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Mr Wallstreet
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Post by Mr Wallstreet »

Oliver Stone's film about the 43rd President of the United States - and surprisingly, it wasn't as biased or as left wing as I expected it to be. While telling the story of "Dubya", Stone started off in Bush's college days and would then jump forward to a point during Bush's Presidency, then jump back to another point in Bush's early adulthood.

According to the film, Bush's early adulthood was marked by a lot of rebellion, anger and resentment towards his father (H.W. Bush) who was constantly dissapointed in Dubya and growing increasingly weary of his son's lack of motivation, direction and, most of all, his constant fuck-ups.

The various points of the film that focused on Dubya's presidency were all moments of huge controversy i.e. his election in 2000 (where it stated that Bush only got elected because his daddy called in a favor), the behind the scenes reasons push and reasoning to go to war in Iraq, the massive screw-up upon learning there were no WMDs etc...

Overall it was a very interesting film, especially the parts of the film that revealed Dubya's often tense relationship with his father, however, its important to take this with a grain of salt because we don't know how accurate this relationship was. Both Brolin and Stone made Dubya a very sympathetic character without reducing him to a dunce. I think what I took away from this film is that deep down Dubya is/was a good person and genuinely felt he was doing the right thing but he was led astray by people with differing agendas and to a degree allowed himself to be led astray so he could justify some of the things he wanted to do.

A great example of this is a scene where Bush and his advisors are meeting to discuss the viability of going to war in Iraq. Bush wants to go to war in Iraq but for different reasons than Rumsfeld and Cheney - both of whom say straightforward that there is no American presence in the middle east guarding/ensuring the oil source for American interests. Colin Powell is the only one who strongly disagrees and voices his opinion but ultimately agrees to do as the president asks.

The only character who I felt was downright awful was Thandie Newton's portrayal of Condoleeza Rice. Though Rice didn't get many speaking parts, the few times she did, it looked as though she were behaving like a caricature of Rice. Newton's Rice was extremely nasal, and had this nervous tick. I've neard/seen Condi speak and Newton acted nothing like her.

A good film, not great but enjoyable

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