American Boy

Yesterday, I caught a screening of W., and, trust, not because I wanted to see it: I simply, unwittingly reversed the 12:05 p.m. start time of Rachel Getting Married with the 12:50 p.m. start time of director Oliver Stone’s presidential biopic.

After all, why would I want to spend my hard-earned money on a movie opening, as EW.com pointed out, “during tough economic times about a man whom many blame for said financial strains”?

Alas, there I was standing in line. So I made lemonade. (The movie, btw, unlike its subject matter, met expectations, making $10.6 million its first weekend out.)

And here I am to tell you that W. is by no means a bad movie, it’s just not all that informative. Yes, it takes us through George W. Bush’s, the good US of A’s 43rd president, quite eventful life. But I didn’t think it gave me any insight into his life, at least no new insight.

We see “Dubya,” through a series of flashbacks, struggle and (arguably) triumph during his college years at Yale, striving to live up to the Bush legacy, a constant of his life according to Stone and his writer, Stanley Weiser (Stone’s Wall Street co-writer).

We see him meet his future wife Laura Bush at a barbecue setup that’s equal parts awkward and cute (because this is the only setting in which his aggroying Every Joe shtick really ever works – and for a sweet cause, no less).

We see him get saved – from booze (and drugs, right?) – but unfortunately not from his low self-esteem, and always fall upward thanks to his last name.

And we see him in the critical days leading up to his decision to invade Iraq, egged on by a manipulative cadre of yes people. You know who they are. And you know how that turned out.

Mostly, though, we see Josh Brolin in W., and he’s just dandy. He not only has the mannerisms we’ve come to find annoying, endearing, and yes, even amusing down pat, he enlivens them with a humanity that is – gasp! – hard to resist.

Brolin captures the spirit and the charisma of the man, the poor little rich boy who could not help but disappoint, deeply disappoint his father, as well as the flaws of the politician who will go down in history as perhaps one of the worst presidents ever to govern America.

The movie may not have broken any ground as a biography, but it did provide some fascinating moments, most set in the confines of meeting rooms in the Bush White House. Those I found interesting, but there weren’t enough to keep this lemonade cool and tasty.

My Rating **

Photo: SunTimes.com.