Despite strong acting, Adam McKay’s biopic plays like a ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch without the jokes.
‘Vice’ Annapurna Pictures
Adam McKay’s Vice is a seething condemnation of the damage done by the idea that certain folks (well-dressed white dudes of a certain class status) are offered a presumption of competence and expertise. Yet the movie, which itself is a cinematic mediocrity that is being hailed as a potential Oscar contender partially due to its subject matter and the established pedigree of its white male filmmaker. The contradiction doesn’t just validate the idea that movies about white dudes are automatically considered to be of greater critical value than acclaimed movies about white women and/or minorities. It also acts as a fascinating case-in-point for the movie’s core message. It’s a strange (intentional?) case of the film’s subtext being made text by virtue of aesthetic failure. That may make it an artistic win, but it’s still not very entertaining.
Vice is a cradle-to-grave biopic of the political career of Dick Cheney. And, yes, Christian Bale absolutely transforms into the title character in a truly remarkable turn even from an actor known for being something of a chameleon. It’s an immersive performance, one that absolutely captures the visual essence of its subject. However, the subject in question isn’t a terribly cinematic figure, and the film’s plot beats barely scratch the surface of the history on display. It has been popular of late to criticize big-screen biopics for being glorified Wikipedia entries. But Vice is the kind of movie that absolutely presumes that audiences are already deeply familiar with the history or are willing to do research before or after the fact for context the movie doesn’t bother to provide.
Amy Adams is also superb as Lynne Cheney, even if her best scene is her first scene (where she gives a young and adrift Cheney a “shape up or I’m gone” tough love speech). Beyond those two star performances, the rest of the buzzy cast barely amount to extended cameos. Steve Carrell gets a few choice beats as Donald Rumsfeld (even as the film completely leaves out the key political context in his eventual dismissal from the George W.
