VICE

By Linda Winsh-Bolard

Suggestive name, undoubtedly intended. Power is an addiction, and the film documents it.

Vice is one of the few films made lately that is truly a movie. Not a reworked action book, not a filmed play, a truly filmic moving picture.

Vice uses tools available only to film: timelines, intercuts, stop motion, real footage, sound delay, overlays; not just pictorial but a combination of dialog and visually unconnected, yet fully understandable narrative. Special effects used to tell a story.
Dick Cheney, before he enacts number of questionable policies based on even more questionable “explanations” of law, sits in fancy restaurant. A menu is presented by the maître, who recites the special: invasion, torture and obviation of standing laws. Cheney takes all of it. This is what film can do, when its technique is used right.

Story line is simple: a group of good old boys working together to grab all the power there is for themselves. “You can do whatever you damn want”, remarks Cheney, with no oversight, checks or control. Just because you want.

None of the facts were new to me, yet the cumulative power grab, the aggressive, entirely selfish, indifferent entitlement that the story documents, is overwhelming. It is a sad documentation of losing democracy to few morally defective individuals supported by huge money serving enormous greed. The mechanism must have been visible to all on the inside and around, yet they all put the promise of being included in the spoils before any obligation to the country or people. It should be required screening for all.

The filmmakers carefully avoid guessing beyond what can be reasonable deducted, or proven. A narrator introduces, explains or admits that no one really knows, all through the film. At the beginning, this is a bit awkward, but it becomes a good way to keep things moving. The film also presents no judgment. All it does, is showing what, when and how it was done. It gives a nudge though, after about an hour, end credits roll in. Democracy persevered, Gore became president- we almost had you, laughs the film. Not so fast, and the film goes on to document the fallacy of George W. Bush's war on terror.
It works. It makes the indifference to lives of others, literally life as of staying alive, by the power grabbers more astounding. Tens of thousands of dead in exchange for presidency or oil fields? Done!

Vice is not shying from portraying the group's indifference to all, members included, should their self-interest not be strong enough to overcome their moral doubts, and how casually it destroys them.
It is a powerful movie, fast moving, and while entertaining is not the word to describe it, it is never boring.

Having never met the major characters, I cannot guess, if the acting is accurate. I can say, it is convincing. Starting with Christian Bale as Cheney, the quiet guy with no scruples, all the way down to the last bit part, everyone is believable as the character they play. Amy Adams is quite scary as formidable Lynne Cheney.

I wonder, how frustrated the real Lynne, who at the beginning of the film chastises her husband for being lazy drunk, was, when she lived with the limitations, she describes: “I cannot go to big fancy school or have an important job. I need you to do it.” Notice, Lynne gets nomination for an important job, Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, when Dick is Chief of Staff to Ford; you’d not believe how many wives do just as well, and that is not even mentioning kids.

Director/writer Adam McKay argues in his film that Dick Cheney had become the most powerful Vice in history of US. Maybe, maybe not. That is irrelevant. What this drama/satire/ dark comedy/quasi document shows, is the move from informed, democratic society to one run by dictatorial, manipulative rulers; and does it, as Adam McKay wanted: very effectively.

Like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Dunkirk, Vice will be nominated for an Oscar. It will not get it. Like Martin McDonagh and Christopher Nolan, Adam McKay gets too close to real life; that life also shows what media corporations became. Media is not going to forget or forgive. Christian Bale and Amy Adam both have a good shot at winning.

Production companies: Gary Sanchez Productions, Plan B
Distributor: Annapurna Pictures
Director-screenwriter: Adam McKay
Cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Tyler Perry, Alison Pill, Eddie Marsan, Justin Kirk, LisaGay Hamilton, Jesse Plemons, Bill Camp, Don McManus, Lily Rabe, Shea Whigham
Producers: Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Will Farrell, Adam McKay, Kevin J. Messick
Executive producers: Megan Ellison, Chelsea Barnard, Jillian Longnecker, Robyn Wholey, Jeff G. Waxman
Director of photography: Greg Fraser
Production designer: Patrice Vermette
Costume designer: Susan Matheson
Editor: Hank Corwin
Music: Nicholas Britell
Casting: Francine Maisler

Rated R, 131 minutes