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W.

EMAILPRINTLionsgate

W. reviews
56
4.9 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 70 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy  |  Drama

Written by: Stanley Weiser

Directed by: Oliver Stone

Release Date:
Theatrical: October 17, 2008
DVD: February 10, 2009

Running Time: minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: Rated PG-13 for language including sexual references, some alcohol abuse, smoking and brief disturbing war images

Starring Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, Richard Dreyfuss, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Scott Glenn, and Ioan Gruffudd

Whether you love him or hate him, there is no question that George W. Bush is one of the most controversial public figures in recent memory. In an unprecedented undertaking, acclaimed director Oliver Stone is bringing the life of our 43rd President to the big screen as only he can. W. takes viewers through Bush’s eventful life -- his struggles and triumphs, how he found both his wife and his faith, and of course the critical days leading up to his decision to invade Iraq. (Lionsgate)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

W., a biography of President Bush, is fascinating. No other word for it.

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88

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

You'll be disappointed if you expect famed leftist Oliver Stone to apply a coup de grace to this man.

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83

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Seems a much more even-handed and thoughtful take on the man than anyone might have expected.

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80

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

A measured and thoughtful meditation on a leader who, this terrific movie believes, inadvertently made the world as roiling as his soul.

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80

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The pleasure of Mr. Stone's work has never been located in restraint but in excess, a commitment to extremes that can drown out the world or, as in this film, give it newly vivid, hilarious and horrible form.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

In the end, W. makes up in immediacy what it lacks in objectivity.

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75

New York Post Lou Lumenick

An often compelling, tragicomic psychological analysis of Dubya, viewed through the prism of his relationship with an allegedly disapproving father.

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75

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

In the end it depicts its subject as lost, and pitiable--like Richard Nixon, but more a pawn than a dark knight.

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75

USA Today Claudia Puig

The performances are good (some scarily realistic), and the movie is enjoyable to watch. But as a probing analysis of the 43rd president, it falls short.

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70

Slate Dana Stevens

Like Tina Fey's Sarah Palin, Stone's George Bush gets his best lines straight from the source.

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70

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

W. is not a dispassionate biography; it is an interpretation of personality intersecting with history, and as a piece of drama it is persuasive and perfectly creditable.

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63

Boston Globe Ty Burr

When it works, W. can take your breath away. When it doesn't, you can feel Stone still working out his feelings toward the man.

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63

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Passably interesting, occasionally riveting and largely superfluous. But it's certainly a worthwhile curiosity, and it's not what anyone expected. At the movies these days, that alone is worth something.

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63

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Whatever you think of Dubya, he has balls. The movie doesn't.

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60

Newsweek David Ansen

Like all Stone movies, W. has energy and forward momentum--particularly in the pre-presidential sections, when Bush is in his loose-cannon phase. It's not boring, and Brolin is often remarkable.

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60

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

W. is the kind of film that demands discussion and only then can we start to decipher what Stone's intentions are towards our President.

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60

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It's when Stone engages in shameless editorializing -- when he lets his freak-flag point of view fly, rather than tempering it -- that W. is most entertaining and most vital. The rest of the time it feels too much like awards bait: stiff, arch and knowing.

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60

NPR Bob Mondello

A surprisingly unsurprising film.

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58

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Stone paddles down the giant river of Bush's life without exploring any of the tributaries; he passes by two or three dozen better movies along the way.

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58

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The intrepid one is the outstanding Josh Brolin, who does such a phenomenal job in the title role that he carries every scene he's in to a place of subtlety and integrity far beyond what Stone needs to make his attention-grabbing noise.

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50

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

In our age of 24-hour news coverage, this rehashing of current events doesn't just come off familiar but completely unnecessary. And, worst of all, prosaic.

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50

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

In spite of Josh Brolin's heroic efforts, W. is a skin-deep biopic that revels in its antic shallowness.

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50

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Superficial, uninformative, and inert, this two hour snoozefest isn't even inflammatory enough to stoke a righteous anti-Bush brushfire. W. does for recent history what Oliver Stone's epic "Alexander" did for ancient times.

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50

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Unlike the filmmaker's previous stabs at presidential biopic-ing and conspiracy theorizing - "JFK" and "Nixon" - this one doesn't have the luxury of historical perspective.

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50

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

It's a gutsy movie but not necessarily a good one. Its greatest strength is that it wants to talk about what's on our minds right now and not wait for historians.

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50

Variety Todd McCarthy

For a film that could have been either a scorching satire or an outright tragedy, W. is, if anything, overly conventional, especially stylistically.

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50

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

None of it is new, nor is the recycled stuff presented in a newly revealing context.

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50

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

It's most entertaining for its stunt casting of movie stars as the president's family and advisers.

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42

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Stone may think he's made a movie about the toxicity of the Bush presidency, but what we have instead is a cautionary tale of a decidedly lower order. As far as I can make out, the real message of W. is: Don't vote for anybody who talks with his mouth full of food.

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40

New York Magazine David Edelstein

W. isn't gripping enough as drama or witty enough as satire. It's neutered.

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40

The New Yorker David Denby

Richard Dreyfuss, hunching over and baring his teeth like a shark cruising off a Martha's Vineyard beach, does a wicked impersonation of Cheney. His relish for the part suggests that the movie should have been done not as an earnest bio-pic but as a satirical comedy -- as a contemporary "Dr. Strangelove," with a cast of satyrs and clowns.

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40

Empire Helen O'Hara

Disappointing. Stone whipped this out in time for the US Presidential election, but it’s hard to see how it’ll make any significant impact on voters. Or why it even should.

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40

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Why this movie -- a rushed, wildly uneven, tonally jumbled caricature -- and why now?

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40

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A painful movie to endure.

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40

Time Richard Corliss

The movie is an X-ray of an invisible man -- by the film's end, the W. still stands for Who?

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38

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The movie plays like a dunk-the-clown game at a carnival. Through intent or ineptitude, he sets up the Bush family and administrations as caricatures.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 4.9 (out of 10) based on 70 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Topias I gave it a1:
Horrible. at least when ur not from USA. cant say good things about this movie.

Ben N. gave it a7:
I went into this movie expecting to see a leftist bashing of Bush but that's just not what happened, it was a surprisingly fair film from Oliver Stone. It wasn't fair and balanced by any means but it was center-left perspective instead of the expected far-left perspective. Oliver Stone Portrays The President as an average Joe of average intellegence who constantly tried, and failed in his W's mind, to live up to his father's expectations. The most surprising thing was Stone's protrayal of Bush's decisions on Iraq, in that it was the intellegence system betraying Bush instead of Bush just trying to one up his dad as most leftists believe. Though the film doesn't protray any of Bushes successes in offic, it critiques his mistakes in a way that is fair to the man who wasn't a bad president in general, just not one of our best. A a centrist myself I see this film as a fair representation of the man an encourage everyone who believes Bush is Evil to see it to get a lesson on the truth: that he was just an under-qualified man doing the best he could. In fact the one man Stone actually portrays as evil in the film is Dick Cheney, answering Powells questions on Iraq by saying, "There is no Exit Stragety, We Stay" The Clif-Hanger style endind will ruin the movie for you but you will still enjoy it for the most part, if you keep an open mind on Bush.

Burt B gave it a1:
Terrible! Not factual, but I couldn't discern a motive for why they fictionalized the story like they did. Don't waste your time.

Andrew R. gave it a6:
A little long and too much symbolism for my taste.

Jon T. gave it a2:
No plot, not point. Very poorly made, and an extreme let down.

Mark L. gave it a0:
I did expect that the movie would cast Bush in a bad light, but do so in an interesting and educative way. This was a Bush critique at the level of a Middle School yard fight. Virtually every scene showed him as a weakling, bafoon, or eviildoer. It was a boring and obvious caricature, not a movie that explained his (perceived) failures in an intelligent or illuminative light. There was no hint of the qualities and strengths that made him president, and before that, a successful and immensely popular Governor, and therefore, no explanation why these qualities failed him and the country during the last eight years.

Armond A. gave it a7:
While this film doesn't offer the viewer any new information, it does assemble the pieces we have all seen before into an interesting and plausible account of the man who many consider the worst US President in a long list populated with few heroes, numerous mediocrities, and a good bunch of failures. There is something morbidly fascinating about someone who has done so badly in such high office. Stone's timing in bringing out this film has been questioned by some, but one might say that it would have been very interesting to have gotten an account of the captain of the Titanic while standing on the deck of the ship as it slipped lower and lower into the icy ocean. Adding to the dark humor are the performances of several of the supporting players. Let me single out Thandie Newton's stunning interpretation of Condoleezza Rice as a fawning, servile Aunt Jemima, and Richard Dreyfuss as a ferociously intense schemer. Like many, I don't know what, exactly, to make of this film, but it really is a thoughtful piece, and it has some very clever moments. If you're one of the 25% of the populace who still consider the real W's job performance acceptable, then you're not going to enjoy this movie. For the rest of us it's an intriguing and amusing effort by a very good craftsman.

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