It's always my aim to go into a film with as open a mind as possible. No matter your experiences with a certain director, style, genre or performer, every project should be given the benefit of the doubt. With all of my might, I attempted to muster this outlook before heading into Adam McKay's latest, Vice. Still reeling from The Big Short three years after the fact - my disdain is well-known around these parts - I hoped that my scorn would not be repeated here, with McKay perhaps curbing his mismanagement of contemporary issues. How wrong I was.
Vice documents the rise and fall of Dick Cheney, a man who ascends from washed-out student and hard labourer, to White House intern and eventual Vice President of the United States. Through greed, manipulation and corruption, Cheney becomes George W. Bush's running mate, exploiting the system and invoking orders which bestow him with power and authority previously unseen in a Vice President. In this flashy parade of prosthetics, big names transform in front of our very eyes; Christian Bale is Dick Cheney; Amy Adams is Lynne Cheney; Steve Carell is Donald Rumsfeld; Sam Rockwell is George W. Bush. And unfortunately, Nathan Osborne is having the worst time of his life.
Before we witness even a sliver of footage, Vice displays a card textually explaining that this is as close to a true story as possible given the incredible secrecy surrounding its central figure life, before adding "we did our f*cking best" with the story's telling. If that doesn't set the entire tone for the film, then I don't know what will. And if this is the film's best version, then god help us all.
Before we witness even a sliver of footage, Vice displays a card textually explaining that this is as close to a true story as possible given the incredible secrecy surrounding its central figure life, before adding "we did our f*cking best" with the story's telling. If that doesn't set the entire tone for the film, then I don't know what will. And if this is the film's best version, then god help us all.
Self-important, cynical and poorly-judged, Vice is a most hateful film that takes aim so carelessly that it ends up skewering its audiences more so than any of the political figures it is parading, vitriolically condemning paying viewers with unadulterated contempt and the desperation to deflect blame so recklessly. Oozing with venom and spewing it violently, McKay's 'satire' is a continuously smug, tonally-incoherent and condescending piece of cinema - if 'cinema' is the right word for a film that neglects the parameters of good filmmaking - that not only appears to humanise a loathsome figure that caused the death, suffering and misery of thousands (if not millions) through his desperation clamber for power -- but doesn't even consider the motive that drives such an unpleasant man. It humanises, even lionises a man who deserves neither -- and that's only briefly scratching the unpleasant surface of this appalling film.
Never known for subtlety but utterly bludgeoning here with heavy-handed, animalistic metaphors and faux-Shakespearian dialogue, Adam McKay's sledgehammer routine is an ostentatiously-assembled mess that places clear, misguided emphasis on the gimmickry of the filmmaking style. Operating as a disservice to the potential, thematically-rich cautionary tale at hand, his masturbatory method overwhelms anything and everything smart or insightful the picture could have said. With a clear display of directorial arrogance evident throughout the film's every chosen avenue, the endless freeze frames, asides and one particular scene I take no pleasure in labelling one of the very worst sequences ever put to film - it involves a menu of atrocities and I think I'd rather experience them all first-hand than revisit this film - it is, itself, a concotion of conceit. Frantically hacked to pieces in the editing room and pieced together so incoherently that it only seeks to magnify the film's delirious ramblings.
McKay's writing is driven first and foremost by misplaced hate, condemning the audience instead of the Cheneys: clear no more so than during Bale's direct-to-camera monologue that shatters the fourth wall and any sense of conscientiousness that actually held out until the final act. If it's not completely wiped out by the mid-credit scene - a sequence so dreadful that it seeks to embarrass younger viewers with its spiteful takedown of millennials, the people cinema should be trying to rally politically, instead of ostracising - then we were watching very different films. It offers little more than a Wikipedia entry could, never truly getting under the skin of its central figure in a way that feels remotely perceptive or satisfying. Framed around a wholly fictionalised narrator - complete with a mind-numbing twist that would have been less painful if McKay had simply slapped you round the face instead - this is excruciating work from a self-serving director so pleased with his creation and obnoxious filmmaking narcissism.
A fat suit does not a good performance make, with Christian Bale's transformative turn registering more as an impersonation than anything else. While his physical commitment cannot be disputed, it's a superficial production with little resembling depth; like trying to wring water from a dry paper towel, Bale plays the notoriously stone-faced man without the resources behind him to crack the exterior. In all fairness to Bale, it's the screenplay's botched, unfulfilling humour and tonally-unintelligible execution that forces him to squarely focus on the technicalities of the performance.
Likewise, Rockwell's glorified cameos as George W. Bush - audaciously nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the BAFTAs and Oscars - is such a smoke-and-mirrors feat that looks and sounds the part, if little else. Amy Adams gives the closest thing to a good performance here but relegated to 'the wife of...', she rarely gets to rise above. Not once did I sincerely look at these A-Listers and believe them; it's abundantly clear that they're playing political dress-up, all reeling off impressions. Some are indeed stronger than others but all are largely unremarkable when you overcome the flashiness of their turns.
Nicholas Britell's score is half-decent in isolation, capturing a patriotism that could have been smartly inverted and correctly reconciled in the right hands - but its diegetic use is so discordant in practice, quickly overbearing in a way that reflects the stylistic and narrative decisions.
Vice's utilisation of the same techniques that allowed Donald Trump to take up the most powerful position in the United States of America - namely, treating serious, weighty material as a continual joke that dismisses its validity and inadvertently permits such despicable behaviour as less severe under the guise of flippancy - is dangerous, quite frankly. An entirely toxic, ill-conceived piece of filmmaking that misjudges the emphasis on style over substance, Vice tells you no more than a quick Google search would, taking extraordinary lengths to humanise and lionise a despicable man and angering its audience in the process. A satire biting the wrong thing, Vice is a nauseous experience and easily the worst film nominated for Best Picture since, erm, The Big Short. I'll never forgive myself for not leaving after the fake credits, nevermind staying to see the world's worst mid-credit scene.
Summary: Vice is, without question, the most hateful piece of cinema you may ever experience -- and it's easy to loathe it in return.
Never known for subtlety but utterly bludgeoning here with heavy-handed, animalistic metaphors and faux-Shakespearian dialogue, Adam McKay's sledgehammer routine is an ostentatiously-assembled mess that places clear, misguided emphasis on the gimmickry of the filmmaking style. Operating as a disservice to the potential, thematically-rich cautionary tale at hand, his masturbatory method overwhelms anything and everything smart or insightful the picture could have said. With a clear display of directorial arrogance evident throughout the film's every chosen avenue, the endless freeze frames, asides and one particular scene I take no pleasure in labelling one of the very worst sequences ever put to film - it involves a menu of atrocities and I think I'd rather experience them all first-hand than revisit this film - it is, itself, a concotion of conceit. Frantically hacked to pieces in the editing room and pieced together so incoherently that it only seeks to magnify the film's delirious ramblings.
McKay's writing is driven first and foremost by misplaced hate, condemning the audience instead of the Cheneys: clear no more so than during Bale's direct-to-camera monologue that shatters the fourth wall and any sense of conscientiousness that actually held out until the final act. If it's not completely wiped out by the mid-credit scene - a sequence so dreadful that it seeks to embarrass younger viewers with its spiteful takedown of millennials, the people cinema should be trying to rally politically, instead of ostracising - then we were watching very different films. It offers little more than a Wikipedia entry could, never truly getting under the skin of its central figure in a way that feels remotely perceptive or satisfying. Framed around a wholly fictionalised narrator - complete with a mind-numbing twist that would have been less painful if McKay had simply slapped you round the face instead - this is excruciating work from a self-serving director so pleased with his creation and obnoxious filmmaking narcissism.
A fat suit does not a good performance make, with Christian Bale's transformative turn registering more as an impersonation than anything else. While his physical commitment cannot be disputed, it's a superficial production with little resembling depth; like trying to wring water from a dry paper towel, Bale plays the notoriously stone-faced man without the resources behind him to crack the exterior. In all fairness to Bale, it's the screenplay's botched, unfulfilling humour and tonally-unintelligible execution that forces him to squarely focus on the technicalities of the performance.
Likewise, Rockwell's glorified cameos as George W. Bush - audaciously nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the BAFTAs and Oscars - is such a smoke-and-mirrors feat that looks and sounds the part, if little else. Amy Adams gives the closest thing to a good performance here but relegated to 'the wife of...', she rarely gets to rise above. Not once did I sincerely look at these A-Listers and believe them; it's abundantly clear that they're playing political dress-up, all reeling off impressions. Some are indeed stronger than others but all are largely unremarkable when you overcome the flashiness of their turns.
Nicholas Britell's score is half-decent in isolation, capturing a patriotism that could have been smartly inverted and correctly reconciled in the right hands - but its diegetic use is so discordant in practice, quickly overbearing in a way that reflects the stylistic and narrative decisions.
Vice's utilisation of the same techniques that allowed Donald Trump to take up the most powerful position in the United States of America - namely, treating serious, weighty material as a continual joke that dismisses its validity and inadvertently permits such despicable behaviour as less severe under the guise of flippancy - is dangerous, quite frankly. An entirely toxic, ill-conceived piece of filmmaking that misjudges the emphasis on style over substance, Vice tells you no more than a quick Google search would, taking extraordinary lengths to humanise and lionise a despicable man and angering its audience in the process. A satire biting the wrong thing, Vice is a nauseous experience and easily the worst film nominated for Best Picture since, erm, The Big Short. I'll never forgive myself for not leaving after the fake credits, nevermind staying to see the world's worst mid-credit scene.
★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
(1/10)
Summary: Vice is, without question, the most hateful piece of cinema you may ever experience -- and it's easy to loathe it in return.