oliver stone's W. (2008)

why, in the end, did Oliver Stone choose to make this movie? the obvious answer is "because he's Oliver Stone" and all, but the primary impression W leaves has much less to do with the engaging novelty of great actors portraying great villains than with the general uselessness of it all. it's certainly wise to pinpoint George W. Bush's issues with his daddy and his brother as a driving force in his personality and historical trajectory, but Stanley Weiser's script bypasses a truly serious character study in the interest of giving the major players their face time. as Stone promised, the film is no mere smear, but neither does it respect its subject enough to do anything we're not expecting, and even if it balanced out the loud moments with a few more quiet ones there would still be the task of constructing a narrative. but Stone is more interested in making a movie about Dubya than actually telling his story (or at the least pulling some real lessons out of its few ideas), and the result, quite frankly, leaves little to justify its existence.