Vice reminded me of Stone's JFK in how McKay bends the medium to his purpose so as best tell his story. As he did with his remarkable The Big Short he finds ways to breakdown very complicated systems of power into understandable and digestible moments and make it all part of a compelling and engrossing story. Vice tells you right off the bat this isn't what you would normally get from a historical biopic. This is going to rock your world a bit. And it does.
Vice systematically and methodically breaks down the ways Republican power has been constructed and used to circumvent the constitution and American Democracy. McKay makes it easy to grasp despite not sugarcoating it or dumbing it down. He has a unique talent for such deconstruction and he manages to make it all very watchable at the same time. Vice is both the smartest movie of the year, and one of the most engaging.
People will focus on Christian Bale's chameleon like transformation into Dick Chaney. Yes the make up department and Bale himself deserve awards for how well the nail the look and tenor of the former Vice President. But the real strength comes in more than that. Bale captures a complicated portrait of the man as well, a man whose tone makes him quite hard to play as anything more than a cameo in an SNL skit. He shows us his humanity in the way he relates to his family, especially his daughters. Which makes his ultimate betrayal of his daughter at the end of the film such a heartbreaking tragedy. He chooses power and party over the love of his child. It is a remarkably complicated portrait of evil.
Amy Adams also deserves credit as her complicated and powerful portrayal of Lynne Chaney making her both human and vile at the same time. She has as much agency as anyone in this film and is as responsible. Adams unfairly is seen with a certain "type" and here is just another example from her catalogue which challenges that notion.
And that is a big part of what I appreciated about Vice. McKay never dumbs it down. Sometimes he chooses to be on the nose (the final scene of his heart being taken out is quite obvious) but McKay has constructed a film which balances the obtuse with the more subtle. Some may critique the way he allows his film to get right up in our faces but I think that is a big part of the point of Vice. I can see why some would see his choice of narrator as audacious. I thought it was perfect. Vice is in many ways a blacklight on American history of the past 40 years and the way we have stood by and watched while we allowed evil to percolate and take over.
His powerful choice to indict us all at the end with Chaney addressing us defiantly like he's Frank Underwood (and perhaps he is) throws it back at us. McKay asks us to take our own responsibility for all that he has shown us, from the back room dealings to the graphic images of death and profit from that death that he has exposed us to. Vice pulls no punches.
And it shouldn't.
Vice
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Alison Pill, Lily Rabe, Tyler Perry, Jesse Plemons, Justin Kirk
Writer/Director: Adam McKay
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