Vice

Christian Bale, at last night's Golden Globes, thanked Satan for his inspiration in playing Dick Cheney. And I believe writer and director Adam McKay also called upon the Dark Lord for inspiration, as his film Vice, a biopic of one of the most reviled politicians in American history (he left office with a thirteen-percent approval rating) is unabashedly anti-Cheney. Given the general dyspepsia of the family (there are few more annoying people than daughter Liz Cheney) their reaction to the film, if they have seen it, may be more entertainingly bilious than the film itself.

Cheney is a fascinating figure, lurking in the corridors of power until tapped by George W. Bush to be his running mate after he had been named the chair of his search committee (the film presents this appointment as just a show) and then becoming the most powerful vice-president in the nation's history (we are led to believe that Cheney circumvented power by authorizing military strikes). Cheney was like the neighbor who yelled at you to get off their lawn--he was unsmiling, spoke in a gravely whisper, and appeared to be without a heart, except it kept having attacks.

The resulting film is at times like watching Republican fish shot in a barrel, but McKay, as he did in The Big Short, adds so much stuff that you feel mollified as if by shining objects. As with The Big Short, where he had performers like Selena Gomez and Margot Robbie explain the housing crisis, Vice uses a narrator (Jesse Plemmons), whose connection to Cheney is not explained until the end, to tell us everything we need to know. If that isn't helpful enough, each character is introduced with their name, title, and years served. I can see why we'd need that for Scooter Libby, but we get it even with George H.W. Bush.

Cheney, whom to us seemed as if he sprung from the head of Hades, actually did have a younger self. We see that he was a ne'er-do-well, getting two DUIs, getting kicked out of Yale, and working as a lineman in Casper, Wyoming when his girlfriend, Lynne (Amy Adams) read him the riot act and told him to get it together or she was gone. So, for the story of this power behind the throne, there is a power behind the power of the throne, as the film tells us that Lynne was Lady MacBeth to his Thane of Cawdor.

Cheney ends up working in Washington for Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell),who is a cynical creep. He ends up as Gerald Ford's chief of staff, and then a congressmen from Wyoming. When Bush 41 is elected president he is tapped as Secretary of Defense, even though he had five deferments during the Vietnam War.

During the Clinton years, Cheney is exiled to become CEO of Halliburton, where he makes millions. McKay has a joke as we see false credits roll, as most people would stop right there. But Cheney allows himself to be dragged into W's campaign. He knows vice-president is a shit job, but he reels Bush in (and if we don't understand that, McKay intercuts scenes of a fishing fly being nabbed by an unsuspecting fish), telling the younger man that he would handle the "mundane" stuff, like the military and foreign policy.

Vice is a fun movie, for liberals, probably worse than surgery without anesthesia for a conservative. It has several axes to grind, but I don't believe it gets any closer to understanding what made Cheney tick (a pre-film title card indicates that Cheney has always been intensely private, and that they "tried their fucking best"). Bale gives a fantastic performance as a soulless monster (his only redeeming quality is his love for his daughters, but then he sells one of them out), but it's mostly uncanny mimicry (as is Sam Rockwell's as W; close your eyes and you couldn't tell the difference in their voices).

Adams gives the more interesting performance, sans prosthetics, as a woman with ambition, who knows back in the early '60s that she can only achieve so much as a woman. Her performance is shrewd and subtle. I could watch on an infinite loop her facial reaction to hearing her daughter Mary reveal that she is a lesbian.

McKay provides many fantasy moments, such as Cheney suggesting to Ford that everyone go out on the White House and masturbate with little wigs on their penises, or having Dick and Lynne recite Shakespeare to each other before going into a clinch. In the end, Vice is a gag, a live-action cartoon, and while it is worth seeing don't expect any epiphanies. But do stay through the closing credits for a great punchline.