Vice (2018)
Directed by Adam McKay
George W. Bush picks Dick Cheney, the CEO of Halliburton Co., to be his Republican running mate in the 2000 presidential election. No stranger to politics, Cheney's impressive résumé includes stints as White House chief of staff, House Minority Whip and Defense Secretary. When Bush wins by a narrow margin, Cheney begins to use his newfound power to help reshape the country and the world.
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Writer-director McKay, who struck comedic gold with classic Will Ferrell vehicles such as “Anchorman” and “Talladega Nights” and then elevated his game with “The Big Short” (winning the Academy Award along with his co-writer for best adapted screenplay), doubles down on the flights of fancy and stylized storytelling devices he employed in the latter film.
McKay, who won an Oscar for chronicling the 2008 financial collapse in The Big Short , employs similar narrative tactics in Vice to help us navigate through decades of U.S. politics – characters directly addressing the camera, whip-fast pacing, and weaving footage of actual historic events into the story.
With his last film, The Big Short, Adam McKay achieved the near-impossible: he made a fizzingly entertaining movie about mortgages.
McKay first found success making grand idiot comedies with Will Ferrell and then stepped to the grown-ups’ table with “The Big Short” (2015), his tripartite flaying of the people responsible for the 2008 economic crisis and a movie which handed Bale and Carell rather more complicated roles.
Like “The Big Short,” his rollicking explication of the financial crisis of 2008, this movie transforms gaudy pop-cultural toys into tools of polemic and explanation.
Adam McKay, known for his biting political analysis and dark humour in films such as The Big Short, has hybridised the genres of political satire and bio-pic, creating a dark and mischievous lovechild of a film.
Black Panther was fit to bursting with selling points, all combining to deliver the studio’s best film: Michael B Jordan’s standout villain, scene-stealing performances from Danai Guria and Letitia Wright, plus the direction of Creed’s Ryan Coogler who proved an inspired appointment.
Director of Photography Greig Fraser (“Rogue One,” “Zero Dark Thirty“), is a far superior choice than “The Big Short’s” Barry Ackroyd who went too far with the ‘Bourne‘-like approach to docudrama comedy and composer Nicholas Britell’s (“Moonlight“) score seems to give subtle homage nods to the mordant patriotism method Terrence Blanchard often applies to Spike Lee films.
“It’s a little bit Veep , a little bit Zero Dark Thirty .
Among the artistry on display, pay special notice to the visual variety conjured by cinematographer Greig Fraser (“Zero Dark Thirty,” “Killing Them Softly,” “Bright Star”).
With Vice, McKay does his own manic, disturbing version of All the King’s Men, with Cheney as his Willie Stark.