George W. Bush, played by Josh Brolin, is standing in center field, ready to catch a fly ball. He hears the imaginary cheers awaiting him. As he inhales this celebration, Bush awakens to a meeting where the wording “Axis of Evil” is being discussed. This is how Oliver Stone’s “W” opens. “W” focuses on how President Bush went from his spoiled college life to being the leader of the United States. Director Stone and writer Stanley Weiser depict Bush in college as a massive partier, much to the chagrin of his affluent parents. In one scene, during an initiation to a fraternity, he is asked if he would follow his family’s legacy of going into politics.

“No way in hell I would want to do that,” says Bush as he chugs a beer.

One of the major themes of the movie is the relationship between Bush and his father, former president George H. W. Bush (played by James Cromwell).

Bush Sr. is frequently disappointed in his son due to his reckless ways or inability to maintain a steady job despite his many connections. The relationship between Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. reaches an almost breaking point when a drunk Bush Jr. tries fighting his father. After this episode, Bush cuts down the alcohol and begins his religious experience as a born-again Christian.

Bush Jr. is always trying to escape his father’s shadow and become his own man. He runs for a seat in the House of Representatives and is defeated when his Democrat opponent draws attention to Bush’s bribing voters with beer. Afterwards, his rival calls Bush out for being a bad Christian and Texan for his policies and his life outside of Texas, Bush vows to never be the lesser Christian or Texan again.

His father offers him support by giving him a job to help dad on his presidential campaign. After his father’s loss in the ’92 election, Bush tries his hand at his own politics in 1994 when he runs for governor of Texas, against his parents’ wishes for him to wait four more years. Bush gets upset by this despite his father’s congratulations upon his victory.

Throughout all these flashbacks, the movie takes us through the build-up to the Iraq War. We witness cabinet meetings at the Bush retreat in Crawford, Texas, as well as Bush bringing Tony Blair on board. Toward the end, we see a lunch with the cabinet where a member of the intelligence team admits that they were wrong about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Overall, the acting in the movie is strong.

Brolin does a good job mimicking Bush’s mannerisms and sayings. While depicting him through different stages of Bush’s life, Brolin shows this evolution from a wild adult to a grounded president.

But overall, the most sympathetic character is Colin Powell, played by Jeffery Wright. Powell is seen as the target of all the other members of cabinet for being the one who is the most against the war.

Other strong performances were by Scott Glenn playing Donald Rumsfeld, Toby Jones as Bush’s aide Karl Rove and a particularly strong Richard Dreyfuss as Vice President Dick Cheney, who is shown as the leader behind the invasion of Iraq.

This movie has faced criticism for coming out while Bush is still president and Stone not waiting to make the movie until more facts were out.

In my opinion, the movie did a good job showing the evolution of Bush. Despite his affluent background, Bush comes across as a somewhat common character whom many can relate to. He has his humorous moments from choking on a pretzel while watching a football game to making a look of somewhat shock when Laura Bush (Elizabeth Banks) says she is a librarian at their first interaction. Stone and Weiser did a good job of making Bush likable despite the real-life version having ever-decreasing approval ratings.

I would give the movie with a C+/B- because it jumps around, which can be an issue, but it is matched with some excellent performances.