Review of Vice (2018) by Moviemitch96 — 03 Jan 2019

Adam McKay (Anchorman, The Big Short) writes and directs, and Christian Bale completely transforms himself in order to portray Vice President Dick Cheney, shaving his hair and gaining over 40 lbs. for the role.

He's practically unrecognizable, and his performance is easily the film's biggest highlight, with some strong supporting turns from Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney, Steve Carell as Don Rumsfeld, and Sam Rockwell as George W.

Bush. The rest of the film, however, is a little all over the place, both in terms of story and politics. While there are some genuinely funny moments to be found in the film, the rest consists of plenty of left-wing and liberal biases (a scene at the end of the film even pokes fun at this) and really only focuses strictly on that point of view, which I guess should've been expected, considering it is a film told from Cheney's point of view.

The film's story also jumps around quite a bit from year to year, making the flow of the film feel not very fluid. Overall, it's the performances that really make the film, and there are a handful of clever and funny moments, but the film's editing, inconsistent narrative structure, and left-wing and liberal biases that really only offer one side/point of view limited the film's impact for me, which like I said, is understandable since it's a film about Cheney, but I still hoped for slightly more and was slightly let down in the process.