Vice Review

Dick Cheney was one of the most controversial and hated politicians in American history and his career serves as the subject matter for Adam McKay’s follow-up to the well-received The Big Short.

Vice follows Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) from his days as a Yale dropout and a drunk waster to becoming one of the most powerful men in the world. He navigates the corridors of power which his aim is to climb the top of American government and politics.

A popular criticism of Hollywood is that it’s dominated by a liberal elite who enforce their ideology on the masses. Vice is one of the few films that actually live up to this stereotype. Dick Cheney is easily one of the vilest people to hold office in America and it isn’t hard to criticise his time yet Vice was so heavy-handed that it’s counterproductive.

McKay started his career making silly comedies but he has slowly shown his political beliefs into his films. Anchorman had a joke at the end where the dumbest character joins George W. Bush’s administration, The Other Guys McKay took aim at law enforcement’s inability to stop financial crimes, and his first dramatic The Big Short looked at what caused the 2008 Financial Crisis. Vice continues that trend and it properly earned many of its award nominations for its political messaging.

Vice is a film that wants to have its cake and eat it. The film opens by stating it was based as much of its story on verifiable facts and the mid-credit scene where one man says to another (a surrogate for the audience) that they should look at facts. If a film makes statements like this it must actually follow through on it. Some changes were minor like Cheney working for Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carrell) first instead of William A. Steiger but in The Big Short characters broke the fourth wall to state if any facts were changed for the film.

McKay changed facts to suit his thesis – that Cheney’s only concern was achieving absolute power. Cheney chooses the Republican party – because he felt that was the best way to achieve this. In the film Cheney and many of his allies like Rumsfeld were ideologically empty and aligned themselves with powerful people so they can climb the greasy pole. This ignores the fact that many people in George W. Bush’s administration were ideologues and hawks – especially people like Rumsfeld. McKay also makes some wild conclusions – he pretty much blames Cheney for the rise of ISIS, the Refugee Crisis, the rise of Fox News and conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones. It’s too much to accept because with most of these issues have more complex, multi-fascinated reasons behind them.

If anything McKay looked like he was trying to make an Oliver Stone or Paul Greengrass film where they simplify a story so they can share their political views with the masses. McKay also looks like he is trying to make a Michael Moore documentary with a narrator expositing information and making the same sort of conclusions. The film evens uses the same information and arguments that were of used in the Family Guy episode “Thanksgiving” regarding the Iraqi War.

The other point McKay tries to make in Vice is making parallels to the election of Donald Trump. When Cheney runs for Congress he runs on a socially conservative ticket that acted as a backlash to issues like Affirmative Action and the Feminist Movement – similar to what a lot of Trump and Tea Party supporters felt about Obama. Through archive footage McKay shows that Jimmy Carter placed solar panels on top of the White Horse as a commitment to green energy, but when Reagan was elected he had them removed because of the influence of big oil. The final aspect of this argument was George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) was cultivating an image so the electorate would find him relatable and that he’s ignorant about foreign affairs. Cheney saw the Bush campaign as an opportunity and like Trump’s Vice President Cheney was instrumental in the transition team and the administration.

Vice does play a bit like the Oliver Stone biopic about George W. Bush, W. Cheney has a similar arc, he’s a waster who takes up politics to prove something to a family member – in Bush’s case it was his father; Cheney shaped up for his wife, Lynne (Amy Adams).

The film does give Cheney one redeeming feature – he loves his wife and daughters. He did protect his family, his wife was one of his main advisors and one of the major subplots of the film was Cheney accepting his youngest daughter, Mary (Alison Pill) being gay despite the position of his party.

Vice does have some virtues – mainly through its acting and make-up. Bale is a transformative actor, anyone who has followed his career knows he willingly to put his health at risk for a role (i.e. The Machinist). He was able to act through the make-up and became Cheney, similar to Gary Oldman becoming Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. He does deserve to win the Oscar. Adams and Rockwell were also strong in their roles, especially Rockwell who played a naive man who was used by Cheney and his allies.

Vice is too preachy for its own good and it will leave audiences with a sour taste as the film tries to simplify complex issues.