W | 
| Actors: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks
Studio: Lionsgate
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $26.99
You Save: $2.96 (10%)
Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 5618
Format: Ntsc
Language: English (Unknown)
Region: 1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 129 Minutes
ASIN: B0019LY5IC
Theatrical Release Date: October 17, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
Oliver Stone’s W. is similar to his other movies about American presidents (JFK, Nixon), which is to say these films are much more about Stone’s imagined versions of reported events than they are alleged reenactments. As such, W. is Stone’s case for what he sees as the absurdity of George W. Bush’s ascendance to the White House and especially the arrogant blunder of the Iraq War. Josh Brolin is very good as the miscreant son of George H. W. Bush (James Cromwell), Vice President to Ronald Reagan and 41st president of the United States. Adrift in a sea of booze and squandered opportunities, the younger Bush is largely driven by a need for his disapproving father’s love and respect, which never truly arrives. Becoming a hatchet man for Bush Sr.’s administration, “W” (as his wife, Laura--played by Elizabeth Banks--call him) meets Karl Rove (Toby Jones) and heads toward the Texas governorship, despite his father’s preference that the more golden son, Jeb, get all the family’s support in his Florida gubernatorial bid. Told in broken chronology, W. focuses on Bush’s post-9/11 path to waging a “preventive war” in Iraq despite no hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction to justify it. The major players in W’s administration--Rove, Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright), Condoleeza Rice (Thandie Newton), and especially Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss)--all participate in closed meetings that look and sound like every investigative account by the New York Times or Bob Woodward about the administration’s inner workings leading up to the war. Much of this is quite fascinating if a little weird (Newton’s performance is indeed strange), but the drama is often powerful, particularly around Powell’s resistance to the rising tide for a supposedly slam-dunk war. A number of the film’s key performances, besides Brolin’s, are very strong, especially Cromwell, Jones, Wright, Dreyfuss and Bruce McGill as George Tenet. --Tom Keogh
Beyond W. on DVD 
Family of Secrets the book | 
W. the Soundtrack | 
W. the Original Motion Picture Score | Stills from W. (click for larger image)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 30 more reviews...
 If you have no opinions and no brain join the Bush hating Fan Club January 4, 2009
J. Searles (Northeast US)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I like Oliver Stone, hes made some good movies. This is pretty good movie and I'm not a Bush hater and hes not the best president, hes not our worst president, but hes made mistakes. People are stupid and conforming and are jumping on the band wagon to join the Bush hating fan club. People love George Washington nowadays when he as president they wanted to impeach him, 5 years from now people will be complaining again about the president that was elected by you. The United States has the largest population of complainers and the world knows it, sometimes we make ourselves look terrible like gossiping middle school snobs. Don't say he caused the recession or the deaths during the war on terror either. Hes not the only one thats making all the decisions, hes just the only one the average complaining american knows about. Research and form your opinions.
 Like a Greek Tragedy. December 31, 2008
Ron (Berkeley, CA USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I actually liked W. more than Milk. Both are political bio-pics. However, W. focused more on the character of President Bush and Milk focused more on the political career of Harvey Milk. I just found Milk to be too linear in its narrative scope and as a result, not very absorbing. I liked how W. jumped around in time, revealing a key moment of President Bush's character development. It was like watching a Greek tragedy or a Shakespearean play. Furthermore, I thought Josh Brolin's interpretation of President Bush was much better than Sean Penn's rendition of Harvey Milk. As I said before, I'll take W. over Milk anyday.
"I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says - like dumb! I'm smart!" December 25, 2008
J. L LaRegina (New Jersey)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
With the film W., rather than cover the scope of George W. Bush's disservice to humanity - doing so would require more sequels than ROCKY and FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH combined - director Oliver Stone goes only far enough to show what motivates the man the United States Supreme Court installed as president in 2000. Stone's focused, restrained narrative results in a telling biography.
Several times in W. scenes where he's president, George W. Bush utters one of his most noteworthy childish bromides, "I'm the decider." As W. cuts back and forth between the presidency and Bush's earlier years, it becomes clear why he keeps saying that, why his actions don't reflect reality: George W. Bush wants to prove he doesn't need his father George Bush; George W. Bush wants to prove he is not the second-rate older brother of the family favorite, Jeb Bush, who would have been the one Republicans groomed for the 2000 presidential run had he not lost the 1994 election for Florida governor while George W. Bush won in Texas. For George W. Bush, decisions and their consequences are besides the point, which is everyone should know he's the decider, independent of his father and in greater power than his father's choice for First Son, his brother.
Bush repeatedly saying he's the decider reminds me of the scene in THE GODFATHER, PART TWO where Fredo Corleone bemoans younger brother Michael passing him to become head of the family. Had Fredo become boss instead of Michael in THE GODFATHER, George W. Bush becoming president would have been life imitating art.
See W..
The Life of W December 24, 2008
C. R. Swanson (Phoenix)
Oliver Stone's latest film, W. is one that will, not surprisingly, attract a lot of controversy. How you feel about it will likely depend on your political views. Me, well, I'm a total flaming liberal, and I found the movie... enjoyable. Great, but not perfect.
The movie might as well be called "George W Lives in His Daddy's Shadow", since most of the movie centers around the feelings of inadequacy that young W feels. We see him going through hazing at his fraternity, running for office in Texas (and having the Democratic candidate to him what he would go on to do to others so very well), and eventually see him getting to the White House.
One at the White House much of the story centers around the lead up to the Iraq War. We get glimpses back to the early 1990's showing why the first President Bush didn't go all the way to Baghdad, we see George Tennant (played by the wonderful Bruce McGill, who could also play a dandy Bill Richardson), trying to explain, repeatedly, that there's no evidence of nukes in Iraq, and we see Cheney's master plan for the USA to control as much of the world's oil as we can.
Josh Brolin is really excellent as W. He doesn't have the look, but rather like Anthony Hopkins in one of Oliver Stone's other, better films, Nixon, he does capture the body language and the voice of Bush 43. Other notable performances are Jeffery Wright as Colin Powell, Richard Dreyfus as Dick Cheney and, in one of his better performances, James Cromwell as Bush 41.
The movie lags at parts and frankly I would've liked to have seen more about Bush as President than Bush as booze-hound or Bush as born again Christian. Still and all, it was a decent enough film and worth seeing, if for no other reason than my favorite line from the film where Bush Sr tells W something along the lines of, "You can't spend your life drinking, partying and chasing women! You're not a Kennedy, for God's sake!"
And he's right. George W Bush is many, many things, but he's certainly no Kennedy.
 An Engaging and Successful Portrait December 15, 2008
M. J. Kelley (Oakland, CA United States)
Oliver Stone loves political portraits: JFK, Nixon, Alexander and now W. The former three, in my opinion, were not that great. However, W. is a very well constructed film of George W. Bush. Despite two, in my opinion, very heavy handed scenes (Bush and cabinet getting lost on the ranch and the last shot before credits) every scene was brilliantly rendered and meticulously mimicked these political characters and their foibles.
Perhaps most shocking is its balanced approach to the story of Bush's rise in politics and the pathos from the psychological mindset and father/son relationship. Rather than demonize Bush we see his humanity and his flawed mentality. But this flaw isn't shown in the context of political alignment (which is the brilliance of this film) it's a flaw shown in the very character of a man who doesn't know how to achieve anything for himself.
The tragedy is in his want to achieve greatness for only the sake of being great without realizing or doing or thinking about what it actually takes. It is as if by the very fact that he's a Bush he thinks he's special or somehow deserving of the things he wants without having to earn them.
This is another film, like Body of Lies, that is perhaps before its time. For the most part, people are tired of Bush; tired of the politics of his administration, so it's not surprising to me that this movie was poorly received. There is also a certain level of embarrassment (and for some horror) at the actions of this President. So I would recommend not seeing this film if you feel very strongly about the failures of the last eight years. I suggest waiting a few more years before viewing.
But on a symbolic level, I want to make it clear, this film is worth seeing. Through this story Stone comments on American culture: how many teenagers want to be famous just to be famous or how many people act without thinking or hold onto beliefs no matter how absurd? And how many people follow without complaint or question? What we see here is a disturbing portrait of not only an American President but the very vices of American culture, and perhaps humanity as a whole, that lead to our troubles.
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