Review of Vice (2018) by Sophia W — 09 Jan 2019

My spouse and I went to see Vice last night, as we both enjoy history. The previews made the movie appear to be somewhat comedic, which also appealed to us. Sadly, we were disappointed on both counts. This movie is a slow-moving piece of political propaganda that utilizes overt emotional manipulation to couch carefully selected and presented facts such that they appear to be a complete picture of the circumstances surrounding the rise of the Bush-Cheney White House.

What I liked about the movie: There were a couple of rather funny scenes, although they were extremely short. The inclusion of "focus group" scenes depicting the means by which words were selected for use in advertising, debate in Congress, and speech writing definitely added to the quality of the finished product. These were among the best scenes in the movie, in my opinion. And the actors were well chosen and did a reasonable job with the script, particularly Christian Bale as Cheney.

What I did not like: The characters were pretty much flat cartoon versions of the people they were supposed to present. There was no character development whatsoever. No one changed. No one learned anything (with the exception of Cheney when he realized that drinking and carousing was going to lead his wife to leave him). While the sweeping facts in the movie are accurate, the writer started with a preconceived notion of who he wanted Cheney to be, then selected the facts he thought supported that and scripted around them to present the message. This fictionalizes the characters without making the fiction clear and apparent, which means that Mr. McKay is essentially deceiving his audience with intent. Critical events like Desert Storm (during which time Cheney served admirably as Secretary of Defense) are glossed over with barely a mention. McKay's script requires Cheney to be a virtual unknown hidden man, despite the fact that he was actually well-known in political circles. He was, perhaps, not so much a household name as Colin Powell during the 90s, but he was far better known than the movie portrays.

The lack of any presentation of underlying political philosophy in Cheney's, Rumsfeld's, and Bush's drive to power is inaccurate. It completely ignores the neoconservative movement that was an extremely active and influential subculture of the time. It also contributes to the lack of character development. The only incentive presented for all their effort and financial investment is a desire for power. And while the executive theory was a major philosophical concept of the time, the use of power merely because it is there to be used is a poorly utilized and inaccurate plot point here.

The thing I disliked most about the movie is that the points presented were couched in an emotionally manipulating format. For instance, the narrator of the movie is the man whose heart Cheney received in a transplant. The man negatively comments later in the movie that Cheney calls the heart "my new heart." The impression given is that Cheney doesn't care about the life that was lost in the process of saving his. But transplant recipients are not normally given any information about the donors. At the point of the transplant, that did become Cheney's "new heart." An (admittedly generalized) comparison is the purchase of a used car. It is no longer someone else's "old car," but is now the current owner's "new (to me) car.' They probably won't go about to seek out information about the former owner. They will go on with the things in their lives. Which is pretty much what Cheney has done. Presenting the happy family scenes and the soldier scenes to depict the life of the donor manipulates the viewer into seeing Cheney as heartless and uncaring about the person whose heart he has, as though an unfair and heartrending sacrifice was made for an undeserving lout. I go to movies to be entertained and sometimes informed, not to be manipulated. I resented that deeply.

Perhaps the most telling scene in the movie is the bonus scene at the end of the credits. In the final focus group, one (very conservative) member comments that the movie is a liberal propaganda piece. Another responds that the movie only contains facts. A floor-rolling fist fight between the two characters then ensues, while the other members of the focus group go on with their unrelated conversations. Honestly, this was my favorite scene in the movie, because it portrayed fairly well the way politics plays out in everyday modern life.

Overall, the movie deserves one star for the final scene and for Christian Bale's adaptation of Cheney's speech patterns and mannerisms. But the weaknesses of the plot, the historical inaccuracies, the lack of character development, and the emotional manipulation lead me to grant it no more than that. That movie was a couple of hours of my life I won't get back, sadly.