In the last Golden Globe awards, films about the music industry like "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "A Star is Born" were nominated in the category of Best Picture Drama, while a political biopic like "Vice" was nominated under Best Picture Comedy. Under the direction of Adam McKay (who also did "The Big Short"), "Vice" is like no other political biopic I had seen before. It was a sly unflinching blackly comic film that boldly criticized its subject (and the people around him) in a most underhanded manner.
"Vice" referred to Vice President Dick Cheney of the George W. Bush presidency. The historical flashback began from the year 1963 when Cheney dropped out of Yale University with a drinking problem. His political career began with his work as a White House intern under Nixon, a congressman under Carter, Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush and CEO of Halliburton under Clinton. Then he accepted to run as Vice President under George W. Bush, and as won. It further tells about the inside story about Cheney's actions behind the scenes during 9-11 and the WMD issue in Iraq.
For physically transforming into Dick Cheney, Christian Bale won the SAG for Best Actor. He also won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy, although frankly, his performance here was not comic at all. It was in fact a realistically chilling personification of political manipulativeness, greed and ambition. He is a likewise a critical frontrunner to win the Oscar for Best Actor, but Rami Malek seems to be the more popular choice for transforming into Freddie Mercury.
Throughout his career, Cheney had his loyal and even more ambitious wife Lynne by his side. Lynne was the one who threatened Dick to give up his booze, She was the one who used her charm to campaigned on uncharismatic Dick's behlaf when he suffered a heart attack when he was running for congress. She was the one who was calling the shots when Dick was being offered to run for vice president.
Amy Adams is gunning for an Oscar for the sixth time this season for her understated portrayal of Lynne Cheney, the woman behind the man's success, Sam Rockwell also had awards buzz playing an autistic George W. Bush, now that was truly comic performance. Although as far as supporting actors were concerned, I preferred the acting of Steve Carrell as two-time Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He's a familiar name but I was surprised about how viciously he was portrayed in this film. Tyler Perry was also a smart standout as Sec.of State Colin Powell.
As a non-American, I was trying to remember what I knew about Dick Cheney, and, aside from the fact that he was W's vice president, I do not know anything about him at all. I do not even know how he looked like. This movie was fascinating to me because it was so bold. All of these people (Dick, Lynne, W, Rumsfeld) were still very much alive, yet here was a movie that was brazenly making fun of them and what they did. Amazing wit and guts. 9/10.
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