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VICE: Brilliant Bale Gives Dick Some Heart

VICE: Brilliant Bale Gives Dick Some Heart

VICE: Brilliant Bale Gives Dick Some Heart

If Christopher Nolan and Michael Moore had a cinematic love child, it would probably look something like Vice. Adam McKay’s spirited look at former Vice President Dick Cheney’s unlikely rise to power mixes vicious satire and precision pacing to make you laugh and cringe in equal measure. A transformed Christian Bale embodies the grumpy spirit of this power-mad family man, convincing you to set aside personal biases for at least two hours. Political wonks will already be familiar with most of Cheney’s skullduggery, but McKay’s audacious style makes even the most unpalatable of Cheney’s schemes irresistibly entertaining.

The Man, The Myth, The Legend

McKay, who broke into Hollywood with slob comedies like Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Step Brothers, employs many of the same bold devices that made 2015’s Oscar nominated The Big Short such a riot. Characters address the audience, an overbearing narrator explains every nuance of the action, and breakneck editing makes the entire mess compulsively watchable. This time out, McKay turns his attentions to former Vice President and all-around slimeball Dick Cheney (Bale).

The first two-thirds of Vice flirt with brilliance. When McKay stays focused on the life of Cheney, particularly his 50+ year marriage to Lynne Cheney (Amy Adams), the screen pops with energy. We see a reckless young Cheney, fresh from sleeping off a drunken night in the pokey, receive his brutal comeuppance from Lynne. From this one scene, in which Lynne informs Cheney that she’s taking her upwardly-mobile self elsewhere if he doesn’t grow up, McKay illustrates the only language that Cheney understands; authoritarianism. As the film so succinctly puts it, Cheney “would be a dedicated and humble servant to power.”

VICE: Brilliant Bale Gives Dick Some Heart
source: Annapurna Pictures

With the help of a borderline obnoxious narrator (Jesse Plemons, whose connection to Cheney is revealed in the film’s problematic third act), we watch the unlikely ascension of the bumbling, stammering Cheney. From weaseling his way into the good graces of then Nixon henchman, Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell) to using the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to further his agenda to invade Iraq, Cheney proves the quintessential opportunist. McKay’s clever script bounces back and forth in time, cheekily rattling off Cheney’s professional accomplishments and his numerous heart attacks. This structure helps highlight one of McKay’s primary themes throughout Vice; the wheels of fate have often turned in Cheney’s favor.

It’s All About The Style

Vice is an ode to style. Everything about it – the performances, visuals, and editing – echoes the absurdity of Cheney’s relentless power grab. As Cheney and his inner circle dine at a swanky D.C. restaurant, an uncredited Alfred Molina (playing a waiter) goes over a menu that includes “The Enemy Combatant” and “Guantanamo Bay,” meticulously describing how each item circumvents protections afforded enemy combatants by the Geneva Convention. After careful consideration, Cheney replies, “We’ll have them all.” It’s the sort of self-conscious, biting satire that makes you laugh to keep from crying.

Christian Bale remains remarkably human as the political monster. Beyond gaining weight to portray the famously portly Cheney, Bale captures the schism lurking deep within his subject’s psyche. Cheney loves his wife and family unconditionally, yet lacks the self-identity to tolerate even the mildest dissenting opinion. He’s perfectly comfortable shouting down flunkies who question his shoddy evidence justifying the Iraq Invasion of 2003, yet refuses to denounce same-sex marriage out of deference to his daughter Mary (Alison Pill), who has been openly gay since the early ‘90s. Bale’s sunken shoulders and quiet demeanor suggest the possibility of redemption where none exists, which might be his most outstanding acting accomplishment to date.

VICE: Brilliant Bale Gives Dick Some Heart
source: Annapurna Pictures

Surrounding Bale is a dynamic ensemble cast. Carell is absolutely perfect as the cackling Rumsfeld. When a naïve Cheney asks Rummy, “What do we believe in?” Carell erupts with his trademark maniacal laughter and thoroughly shatters any trace of idealism in the young politician. Sam Rockwell also excels with very limited screen time as President George W. Bush. His interpretation of the gregarious yet woefully unprepared Bush (“He’s really green,” Cheney observes) effectively straddles the line between ‘ah shucks’ folksiness and doomed political pawn.

The real star of the show, however, is Amy Adams as Lynne; the true rock of the Cheney household. Lynne uses her guile, moral superiority, and subdued sexuality to mold this lump of a man into the most powerful man in Washington. As she and Cheney schmooze at a political shindig, Lynne observes, “Half the room wants to be us, the other half fears us.” It’s clear from her self-satisfied smile that Lynne is perfectly content with this arrangement.

Political Haymakers

McKay struggles when he tries to make wild causal connections between Cheney’s political dealings and the current state of world affairs. It isn’t that he’s wrong – Cheney’s nasty little fingerprints are all over Washington’s most heinous policies, including the rescinding of the Fairness Doctrine that basically created the opinion-based news industry that has ruined modern political discourse – it’s that his tactics have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

During his eldest daughter Elizabeth’s run for congress in Wyoming, Cheney reluctantly agrees that Elizabeth (who is trailing in the polls) should condemn same-sex marriage. The resulting fallout polarizes the family and breaks Cheney’s pledge to never condemn Mary’s gay lifestyle. McKay uses Cheney’s heart transplant in 2012 as a backdrop for this sequence of events. As Cheney’s dying heart is ripped from his chest, we see a montage of Cheney agonizing over his heartless political decision.

VICE: Brilliant Bale Gives Dick Some Heart
source: Annapurna Pictures

This would normally be just another heavy-handed montage that should have stayed on the cutting room floor, except McKay also uses it to further his political agenda. As Cheney’s heart lies on the hospital slab, we’re inundated by enough images of death and destruction to rival a post-apocalyptic movie. School shootings and California wildfires are just a few of the atrocities linked to Cheney’s heartlessness. Such connections, especially within the context of a fast-paced biopic, feel like nothing more than ideological haymakers that lack any substance.

Vice: Conclusion

Vice is at its best when it mixes information with entertainment and leaves out all of the preaching. McKay ably supplies the bombast and absurdity befitting a mythical beast like Dick Cheney. This wasn’t a man content to just prowl the halls of power; he wanted to crush anyone who stood in his way. After Cheney famously shot his quail hunting partner Harry Whittington in the face in 2006, it was Whittington, not Cheney, who apologized for the incident. Now that’s power.

Are you able to set personal feelings aside when you watch biopics about people you don’t like? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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