W.

W., a biography of President Bush, is fascinating. No other word for it.Read Full Review »

The pleasure of Mr. Stone's work has never been located in restraint but in excess, a commitment to extremes that can drown out the world or, as in this film, give it newly vivid, hilarious and horrible form.Read Full Review »

The performances are good (some scarily realistic), and the movie is enjoyable to watch. But as a probing analysis of the 43rd president, it falls short.Read Full Review »

Like Tina Fey's Sarah Palin, Stone's George Bush gets his best lines straight from the source.Read Full Review »

W. is not a dispassionate biography; it is an interpretation of personality intersecting with history, and as a piece of drama it is persuasive and perfectly creditable.Read Full Review »

When it works, W. can take your breath away. When it doesn't, you can feel Stone still working out his feelings toward the man.Read Full Review »

Whatever you think of Dubya, he has balls. The movie doesn't.Read Full Review »

Like all Stone movies, W. has energy and forward momentum--particularly in the pre-presidential sections, when Bush is in his loose-cannon phase. It's not boring, and Brolin is often remarkable.Read Full Review »

It's when Stone engages in shameless editorializing -- when he lets his freak-flag point of view fly, rather than tempering it -- that W. is most entertaining and most vital. The rest of the time it feels too much like awards bait: stiff, arch and knowing.Read Full Review »

The intrepid one is the outstanding Josh Brolin, who does such a phenomenal job in the title role that he carries every scene he's in to a place of subtlety and integrity far beyond what Stone needs to make his attention-grabbing noise.Read Full Review »