Review: Vice (2019)

The Untold True Story Of Dick Cheney

Vice is the untold true story of Americas Vice President Dick Cheney and how he changed the course of American history forever. The film is written and directed by Adam Mckay whose other film credits include Anchorman (Will Ferrell) and The Big Short (Christian Bale).

The film starts with a young Cheney in a bar getting drunk with what appears to be some work colleagues before all of a sudden changing to a more up to date and older looking Cheney on the day of 9/11 and giving orders left, right and center. As the story progresses, I can't help but feel somewhat intrigued as to what will happen next for Dick and how he became this powerful mastermind in American politics but then feeling annoyed by the abysmal attempt of editing in this film. Whoever was cast to edit this film should just get the boot and never edit a film like this ever again. I'll give it it's due it was edited as bad as last years Mile 22 (Peter Berg) but it was getting there. There were many times which included unnecessary archive footage or stock images of politicians and even a picture of an infra-red wolf appeared which to me didn't work and was a total waste of screentime which could have been used to tell Dick's story better. I felt Mckay just gave up and was like"Yeah just throw some stock images in to make my life easier".

The film has a run time of 2hrs 12mins and by the 2-hour mark it certainly feels it. The first half explains about how Dick got to the position of Vice President and the second hour explains how he took on Al-Qaeda. The film started dragging and I got to the point where I was thinking "Is it ever going to end?". Even the post-credit scene was unnecessary and was a total waste of time to include. I feel the film gets confused as what it wants to be, a serious political drama or a political comedy?

I did, however, enjoy this film more than I thought I was going to and didn't think it was entirely awful. It did explain some political words and phrases well for the audience (myself included) and told Dick's story to a substantial degree well.

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Playing Dick Cheney is America's favourite method actor Christian Bale, who I thought personally did a good job portraying him and I genuinely forgot it was Bale until I had to remind myself constantly that it was him, so props to the Hair and Makeup team.

Joining Bale is one of Hollywoods most talented actresses Amy Adams, who personally deserves some award for playing Dick Cheney's wife in this film as she absolutely BANGS. The film kinda felt saved from her performance and kinda took over Bale in some scenes. Making a return to an Adam Mckay film is Steve Carell who plays Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, and personally felt Mckay tried to make his character funny but it just totally flopped, even with the help of Carell. Playing George W. Bush is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Oscar winner, Sam Rockwell, who portrays W. Bush as somewhat of an imbecile and clueless to his role as President. I agree he did look like W. Bush but the way they wrote his character just seemed dumb and far from what he was actually like.

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Overall the film does somewhat well to portray Dick Cheneys story well with a staggering performace by Christian Bale and a stellar performace by Amy Adams but is unsure in what type of movie it wants to be. This personally is better than Mckays last film, The Big Short, but can come across messy and somewhat egotistic and shameless in what its trying to achieve. Can't see it winning many awards this awards season other than possibly Hair and Makeup and maybe Leading Actress.

3/5

Article Written By: Nathan Mort

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