IF you saw 2015’s excellent ‘The Big Short’ – also from director Adam McKay – you’ll know what to expect here – a complex, statistic-heavy story containing a veritable feast of characters dissected and explained to a mass audience in a witty, mockumentary style that is fluid with the actual events but heavy on the entertainment.
Where ‘The Big Short’ focused on the financial crisis in the early noughties, ‘Vice’ takes on the life of ex-VP Dick Cheney (Christian Bale).
Famously one of the most secretive men on Earth, McKay lays his cards on the table in the titles, saying he “Did his f****ing best” – a statement which simultaneously covers his arse legally, but does bring with it the burden of us viewers never really knowing whether we’re coming or going.
Mostly this is irrelevant, as the fundamental undeniable facts (I would imagine you, like me, are largely clueless about the bloke, his circle, career and impact apart from the fact he accidentally shot someone once) are enough to make it a pretty wild ride.
His turnaround from a good-for-nothing drunk driver to the most powerful Vice-President in history is eye-popping in it’s calculated ruthlessness.
McKay clearly has things to say – and mostly manages to let the facts speak for themselves (although occasionally smashes a walnut with a Rumsfeld shaped sledgehammer).
The editing and frenetic timeline hopping tells as much of the story as the narration from Jesse Clemmons (one of the film’s biggest mis-fires).
We begin in ’63 with the drunk driving incident but hard cut straight into the immediate seconds after 9/11 for instance.
Stylistically it’s on familiar ground for him – lots of freeze frames, record scratches etc – but you have to be on your toes.
It’s almost over before you realise Cheney and his wife have been quoting Shakespeare for the past 2 minutes.
We should have as many words to describe an on-form Christian Bale as Inuits do for snow.
Safe to say – he is absolutely blinding here.
Playing an old-fat bloke, Bale summons up a remarkably physical performance and uses it to devastating effect.
Despite being laden with prosthetics, his comedy chops have never been better (the constant heart troubles Cheney suffered become a brilliant running gag).
Arguably the film would have faltered without him, but would most-definitely not have carried the same depth were it not for the supporting cast.
Amy Adams, Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell are all utterly marvellous.
If you’re a bit thick like me, you will learn a hell of lot – the creation of ISIS, the renaming of Global Warming to Climate Change, the bombings in Cambodia, the dependency on fossil fuel, the shady goings on with Cheney’s Halliburton stock – thank goodness this morally corrupt administration no longer exists (that’s the finger waggling joke throughout this btw).
Faced with the dilemma of siding with his daughter’s sexuality rather than his politic would have come easy to most people – but as we’re constantly taught here – most people aren’t Dick Cheney.
Never mind it being told in the style of National Lampoon or Police Squad – there’s still some pretty grim Ted Talks happening here.
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The hypocrisy and sheer lunacy of the Cheney/Dubya era is the slogan on everyone’s shirt here, as is the current obsession and deification of past leaders (Clinton, Brown, Major, Dubya to name a few handing out rose-tinted specs). We need a tonic like this.
Despite being almost completely left-leaning, treat it like an in-flight demonstration from a cautious flight-attendant – except it is being given 5 seconds after the plane hit the side of the cliff.
Vice 132 mins (15)
★★★★☆
Link
https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/christian-bale-summons-up-a-remarkably-physical-performance-and-uses-it-to-devastating-effect-as-dick-cheney-in-vice/
News Photo Christian Bale summons up a remarkably physical performance and uses it to devastating effect as Dick Cheney in Vice
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