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Vice review: Christian Bale plays Dick Cheney as an inscrutable, placid lump

A skilled piece of comic acting by bale has the unlikely effect of making the former vice president buffoonish as well as sinister in a brilliant piece of storytelling, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Adam McKay; Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Bill Pullman, Sam Rockwell, Alison Pill. Cert 15, 132 mins.

“What do we believe in?” a bemused looking Dick Cheney ( Christian Bale ) asks his boss, Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell), early on in Adam McKay’s satirical biopic Vice . At the time, he is an intern in the White House. It’s the late 1960s and Cheney is beginning to build a career for himself after a drunken, dissolute early adulthood.

At the end of the film, Cheney’s motivations and ideology are still very hard to fathom. He claims everything he was involved in as George W Bush’s vice president, from torture to extraordinary rendition, was done so that Americans could sleep more safely in their beds. The film argues the contrary. Cheney saw opportunity in the 9/11 attacks to increase his own power and to line the pockets of his neocon friends. The general welfare and safety of the US public was the last thing on his mind.

Bale plays Cheney as an inscrutable, placid lump. The vice president is the black hole at the heart of the film. He is a big man who gives nothing away. He speaks in a bear-like growl and has a complete lack of charm. His face betrays no emotion and he never apologises, not even when he accidentally shoots a friend with a gun. He accumulates wealth and influence but does so like “a ghost”, with few people having any idea who he is or where he comes from.

It’s a skilled piece of comic acting which has the unlikely effect of making Cheney buffoonish as well as sinister. At times, we pity him and sympathise with him too. But McKay is quick to remind us what happened on Cheney’s watch. There are frequent montages showing death and destruction everywhere from Iraq to tube trains on London’s Piccadilly line. This footage is accompanied by classical music and is often intercut with scenes showing Cheney at home with his wife, Lynne (played by Amy Adams like a folksy, Wyoming version of Lady Macbeth), or out fishing.

The 15 best films of 2018

Vice is bravura storytelling. McKay isn’t only taking us through Cheney’s life and career but is giving us a whistle stop tour through US politics from the Nixon administration almost right to the present day. As he also demonstrated in The Big Short , McKay has the ability to take complex ideas and present them in a fast, witty and coherent fashion. We are guided through the rise of right-wing think tanks like the Cato Institute and the birth of Fox News. We are introduced to Washington insiders, among them presidents and Supreme Court judges. We are given a brisk account of the weapons of mass destruction debacle and we are taught how US foreign policy under Bush and Cheney helped Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Isis to blossom.

To knit disparate strands of the film together, the director uses a sardonic narrator, US soldier Kurt (Jesse Plemons), who has an intimate connection to Cheney only revealed close to the end of the film.

Early scenes show Cheney as a young ne’er do well, getting drunk at Yale and waking up with dried vomit at the edge of his mouth. After being flung out of college, he takes a job laying power lines. Lynne keeps on intervening to keep his life on track. “I won’t ever disappoint you again,” he promises her. Even so, his prospects seem bleak. He doesn’t have any obvious talents other than what his mentor Rumsfeld quickly identifies as his “dedication” to power, his loyalty and a discretion which probably comes from having nothing to say anyway.

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As portrayed by Bale here, instructing his wife on how to make the macaroni and doting on his two daughters, Cheney is often more Uncle Buck that power-crazed villain. Away from Washington, he is a dedicated family man with a love of labradors and of fishing. The film skims over the 1980s and early 1990s, the period in which Cheney served in the House of Representatives and as George HW Bush’s secretary of defence. It pays little attention to his business career as CEO of the Halliburton Company. McKay floats the idea that if George W Bush (Sam Rockwell) hadn’t come courting him to stand as his vice president, Cheney would quietly and happily have disappeared from public life.

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The most surprising scene in the film is when his daughter announces she is gay and he simply takes it in his stride. His loyalty to her is a line “drawn in concrete” and he is ready, at least for a time, to put his family above his own political career.

The originality of Vice lies in the idea of making such a film in the first place and in the painstaking way McKay tries to pry his reclusive subject out into the light. Before Cheney came along, vice president was regarded as “a nothing job”. As the film demonstrates, Cheney, aided by his Machiavellian lawyer David Addington, transformed the role. He took on executive and legislative powers that exceeded those of the president. George W Bush (played in entertaining fashion by Rockwell) is shown here as an amiable nincompoop with a short attention span who doesn’t even realise that he is being played by his vice president.

Scenes of Cheney plotting away with his henchmen, Rumsfeld, Addington and a few others, could come out of a comedy-drama about a group of ageing, disgraceful thieves like the ones portrayed by Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent and co in the recent film about the Hatton Garden robbery. The comic elements, though, are belied by the devastation that these politicians left in their wake. There isn’t a Citizen Kane- style rosebud moment here. At the end of the film, the mystery as to what makes Cheney tick is no closer to being solved than at the beginning.

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‘Vice’ Review: Dick Cheney and the Negative Great Man Theory of History

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‘Vice’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The director adam mckay narrates a sequence where dick cheney (christian bale) receives a phone call that changes the course of history..

“NARRATOR This is Adam McKay, the writer-director of “Vice.’” “Who is calling on Sunday morning?” [phone ringing] “NARRATOR This, to me, is one of the most important transitions in the entire movie. At this moment, history turns, and this is where Dick Cheney gets the phone call from the Bush campaign asking him to come in and meet with George W Bush.” “That’s right. NARRATOR And we were very conscious with this scene about slowing everything down. I wanted a lot of silence here. And my editor Hank Corwin made the choice to just leave the shot on Cheney’s midsection, so we don’t even see his face for the phone call — “ “ — at 3:00 PM. NARRATOR — making the silences feel even more pregnant, so we can become aware of what’s going on.” “Thank you. Thank you. NARRATOR You can feel the moment to moment second to second consequences of this phone call, of each sentence, of Lynne and Dick’s exchange.” “I still can’t believe they’ve got that poor boy running for president. What’d they want? NARRATOR There’s a painting to the left of the scene that was actually there in the house when we scouted that house for this scene, of a big dog with a little dog barking at it. The big dog has a stick in its mouth.” “That’s what they want. NARRATOR And it was a happy accident. I realized, that’s the relationship between Cheney and W. Bush. Cheney’s this big dog, but the little dog thinks he’s in charge. The other important thing with this scene with the silences is that it also shows how methodical, how careful, how unhurried he is.” “It’s just a meeting.” “Is it just a meeting?” “It’s just a meeting. NARRATOR You realize at this point, Dick Cheney really has become a master of the game.” “Good.”

By A.O. Scott

• Dec. 17, 2018

The way “Vice” tells it, Dick Cheney, who would go on to become the most powerful vice president in American history, started out as a young man in a hurry to nowhere in particular. After washing out of Yale, he retreated to his home state of Wyoming, pursuing his interests in booze and cigarettes and working as a utility-company lineman on the side. Dick was saved from ruin — or at least from the kind of drab destiny unlikely to result in a biopic — by the stern intervention of his fiancée, Lynne Vincent, who told her wayward beau that they were finished unless he pulled himself together.

Her reading of the romantic riot act would have far-reaching consequences. In that pivotal moment, Dick (Christian Bale) looks Lynne (Amy Adams) in the eye and swears he’ll never disappoint her again. The thesis of this film, written and directed by Adam McKay, is that Dick kept his promise. And that everyone else — including his daughter Mary (Alison Pill), thousands of American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and just about everyone on the planet with a care for justice, democracy or simple human decency — paid the price.

[ Read our reviews of other new movies . ]

It will break no news and spoil nobody’s fun to note that McKay is not a fan of his protagonist. His argument is essentially that much of what critics of the current president fear most — the erosion of democratic norms; the manufacture of “alternative facts”; the rise of an authoritarian executive branch — already came to pass when George W. Bush was in office. But “Vice” offers more than Yuletide rage-bait for liberal moviegoers, who already have plenty to be mad about. Revulsion and admiration lie as close together as the red and white stripes on the American flag, and if this is in some respects a real-life monster movie, it’s one that takes a lively and at times surprisingly sympathetic interest in its chosen demon.

McKay, staying close to the historical record (and drawing on books by the journalists Jane Mayer and Barton Gellman ), propounds a negative great man theory of history, telling the story of an individual who was able, through a unique combination of discipline, guile and luck, to bend reality to his will. The man’s feats are both impressive and appalling. He learns the Washington inside game during the Nixon and Ford administrations, applies the lessons during the presidency of George H.W. Bush and demonstrates his unmatched mastery when George W. (Sam Rockwell) comes along.

The story of his rise, roller-coastering through four decades of American history, is a hectic blend of psychohistory, domestic drama and sketch-comedy satire bound together by McKay’s ingenuity and indignation. Like “The Big Short,” his rollicking explication of the financial crisis of 2008, this movie transforms gaudy pop-cultural toys into tools of polemic and explanation. The pace is jaunty, the scenes crackle with gleeful, giddy incredulity, and the dry business of statecraft attains the velocity of farce. The fourth wall is periodically broken, most often by an affable everyman narrator (Jesse Plemons) whose connection to the main character turns out to be one of the few surprises in the plot.

Everything else we’ve already known — or would have if we had been playing closer attention. Bale, thickening and graying before our eyes, burrows into the personality of a shrewd operator endowed with whatever the opposite of charisma might be. His Cheney lacks any trace of charm, humor or warmth, except sometimes in the company of his family. Dick’s devotion to his wife and their two daughters is genuine, but what motivates him above all is the study and acquisition of power, a vocation in which he has Lynne’s fierce and unstinting support.

While he can afford to be sentimental about domesticity and chivalrous toward the women in his life, she has no use for such softness. Dick brings doggedness and tactical instincts to their partnership; Lynne provides the ideological steel. McKay’s portrait of their marriage subscribes to a Macbeth-like conception of political morality. Behind every bad man, there is a woman who is even worse. Adams, as brisk as January in Cheyenne, once again subverts a potentially marginal, helpmeet role (see also “The Master” ), establishing Lynne as the movie’s covert protagonist.

If she has a rival for that role, it’s Donald Rumsfeld, played with demented vigor by Steve Carell. The Dick-and-Lynne marital saga is shadowed by a buddy comedy, in which Dick and Don make their merry Machiavellian way through the legislative and executive branches of government. At first, Rumsfeld is the mentor — an acerbic congressman from Illinois while Cheney is an intern. They dabble in Nixonian intrigue without being tainted by scandal, and cross swords with Henry Kissinger (Kirk Bovill) during the reign of Gerald Ford (Bill Camp).

“What do we believe in?” Dick asks his Yoda at one point, provoking a gale of laughter in response. The more substantive answers are torture, deceit and the all-but-unchecked power of the American presidency. Which turns out, once George W. Bush gets that job, to mean the American vice presidency.

“Vice” is crowded with supporting players, figures plucked from the limbo between the headlines and the history textbooks whose names chime like alerts on an ancient cellphone. Remember Scooter Libby (Justin Kirk)? David Addington (Don McManus)? Paul Wolfowitz (Eddie Marsan)? You probably remember Colin Powell (Tyler Perry) and Condoleezza Rice (LisaGay Hamilton). “Vice” reminds you of all of them, and of other Bush-era people and events, obscure and otherwise, that you might have preferred to forget. It’s a cure — and perhaps a punishment — for amnesia.

To the question “How did he do it?” McKay offers a fairly coherent answer, one grounded in Bale’s canny and sensitive performance. As biography, in other words, the movie works pretty well. As history, though, it’s another story — at once tendentious and undercooked, proposing a reductive, essentially conspiratorial account of recent events.

“The Big Short” used the interplay of personalities to illuminate the workings of a complex system, but “Vice” moves in the opposite direction. The motley pageantry of our politics — the endless arguments about race, class, religion, ideology, sex, region and heritage that have defined the republic since the beginning — boils down to a single personality. All you really need to know about the world today is that everything wrong with it is Dick Cheney’s fault.

How did he get away with it, though? The answer McKay supplies is that he was smart and the rest of us were too dumb and too distracted to stop him. As “Vice” winds down, there is a scene of a political focus group during which a young woman, bored by all the partisan bickering and talk of abstract issues, looks forward to the next “Fast and Furious” movie. It’s hard to know whether this represents hypocrisy or penitence on McKay’s part, but the idea that someone can’t care about both politics and popular culture is dubious at best. At worst, it’s a sneer directed at the audience, an expression of contempt for the public that the movie seems to share with its designated villain.

Vice Rated R. Obscenities and atrocities. Running time: 2 hours 12 minutes.

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‘vice’: film review.

Christian Bale and Amy Adams play Dick and Lynne Cheney in 'Vice,' Adam McKay's sprawling dark comedy about George W. Bush's vice president.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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There’s smart, there’s wicked smart and then there’s Adam McKay smart — the latter of which is on full display in Vice, a scorchingly audacious and dark tragicomedy about the man who, the film argues, became the most powerful and dangerous vice president in the history of the nation.

Trim Christian Bale brilliantly morphs into the potato-ish frame of Dick Cheney in a nervy high-wire act of a film that relates, with merciless humor, the odyssey of a thoroughly unpromising young man who slowly but surely thrust greatness (in his own mind) upon himself by shrewdly playing his cards over several decades. One immediate benefit of the film will be to give the Trump-obsessed media someone else to hammer for a while. But fortunately, this film is not Saturday Night Live -style mockery designed merely to score easy political points but, rather, deep dish satire of the sort that is in generally short supply; beyond that, it illuminates how the track was laid to help us arrive at where we are today. This feels like a zeitgeist event that has its finger on the public pulse and its thumb firmly up the rear of its subject.

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The opening minutes boldly announce McKay’s ambitious agenda. The first we see of Dick Cheney is as a drunken 22-year-old wastrel in 1963 Wyoming, a kid who could arguably benefit from the discipline instilled by a stint in the armed forces (he never did serve). Cut to 9/11, when then-Vice President Cheney assumes total power over the government in the temporary absence of the president. McKay thus poses his central question: How the hell did this two-time Yale dropout make the jump from nonentity to string-pulling power behind the throne?

It’s a challenge that the film seriously embraces over the course of two hours, but it does so in the humorous spirit of Swift and Voltaire, or perhaps the likes of Terry Southern and Gore Vidal if you prefer a more recent era; the surface treatment can seem prankish and outrageous, but beneath the foolishness lies grave consequence. This is, in other words, a dead-serious comedy, one that grapples with history and why things went the way they did, with a hungry conviction.

Adopting a kind of free-form documentary approach, McKay pins young Cheney as a ne’er-do-well who never would have amounted to anything had it not been for his wife, Lynne ( Amy Adams ), who early in the marriage flings down the gauntlet: “Either you have the courage to become someone or I’m gone.” Suitably chastened, young Dick finds his way into a 1968 congressional intern program (Roger Ailes pops up briefly here as a consultant) where he becomes intoxicated by the world of power and influence, moved through most adeptly by President Richard Nixon’s notably youthful associate Donald Rumsfeld ( Steve Carell ).

Tagging along through the corridors of Washington politics does something for this prairie kid, and he’s pulled toward the inner sanctum as he ascends from one good job to another: chief of staff to President Ford, a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for a decade. Making it a power couple, Lynne becomes chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Seemingly propelled by fortuitous friendships and happenstance more than resolute ambition, at least at first, former lush Cheney makes the acquaintance of as-yet-unreformed drinker George W. Bush ( Sam Rockwell ), whose dad just happens to be president. At this point, the film comes close to turning into a cartoon, seeming on the verge of losing its precarious balance by taking potshots at the younger Bush’s yee-haw accent and idiotic behavior. Might Vice still yet self-identify as a feature-length SNL sketch after all and sacrifice its boldly earned status gained via a brilliant mix of comic daring and historical depth? Will this brazen consideration of eminent, still-living historical figures lose its nerve and settle for mere caricature?

A brilliant coup de cinema soon answers that question. After about three-quarters of an hour, end credits begin to roll, as if the film is over. That’s it, Gore becomes president, the Bushes can all go back to Texas and Cheney can hunker down at Halliburton to rake in the millions. Happy trails for everyone, including the USA —  Vice is a very short movie , over and out.

Well, but no, actually. As Orson Welles observed, “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” And the real story for Cheney, and Vice, truly begins here.

The 2000 election is (pick one) won, finessed or stolen, W. gets a full eight years in the Oval Office as opposed to his father’s four. There’s 9/11 to avenge, Saddam to kill, endless Middle East wars to get bogged down in and, for Cheney, far more power than any previous vice president has ever had.

Leaving its coulda-been happy ending behind, Vice now becomes a warped black comedy. Brilliant scene follows brilliant scene: The Cheneys are glimpsed in bed excitedly exchanging conspiratorial Shakespearean dialogue (is McKay actually equating the couple to the Macbeth clan?), the vice president obligingly offers to take a few little matters — like foreign policy, for starters — off the president’s plate just to make things a little easier for him, while old buddy Rumsfeld is installed as secretary of defense.

Without belaboring anything, the film makes crystal clear the tragic misguidedness of the Iraq War, Secretary of State Colin Powell (played straight and very nicely by an unexpected Tyler Perry) being cornered into supporting it and the administration’s role in influencing historically nonpartisan TV news coverage (Naomi Watts puts in an uncredited cameo as a reporter), to name just a few Team Bush initiatives from which there was no turning back.

Through wit, surprise and an irrepressible ballsiness comes a scorching humor that neither curdles nor becomes exhausted. What does wear out is Cheney’s heart — the man has had five heart attacks, beginning at age 37, followed by a heart transplant in 2012 — although some have insisted that he never had one.

Even though the film is devastating in its assessments of Cheney’s attitudes and decisions, it’s so buoyant, its general mood so exhilarating, that it rarely seems like it’s resorting to cheap shots or gags for effect. It’s the work of a great, mordant tragi-comedian, someone whose primary skills lie in humor but, as he’s grown as an artist, has learned to plant his satiric skills in fertile dramatic soil. The creative yield was strong in The Big Short, but here even more so.

McKay’s most visible enablers are his outstanding actors, all cast to terrific effect. Bale has been known as a shape-shifting chameleon through most of his career but, with the addition of 45 pounds or so, the actor disappears into his character as if in a magic act. Across the two hours, Bale brilliantly navigates through Cheney’s evolution from irresponsible young cowpoke to eager-beaver sycophant, company man and, ultimately, the chief officer who knows how to steer the ship of state, in this case more decisively than the captain himself. The actor has the posture and body language down perfectly, as well as the look in the eyes that can be at once genial and steely.

Adams is outstanding as her husband’s sharp and, in the early days, far more resourceful accomplice; to twist a popular term of the time, she certainly was the great woman behind the man, as it’s quite clear he would never have gotten anywhere near where he did without her. Fortunately, Adams in no way condescends to her character. The couple had two daughters, one of whom, Mary (played here by Alison Pill), has long been openly gay and eventually married, with the full support of her father, who, with his libertarian attitude, split with many other Republicans on the matter. But her sister, Liz (Lily Rabe), nursing political ambitions of her own, was against it.

Both Carell and Rockwell start their performances in high-pitch caricature mode but soon settle into credible grooves that are close enough to the real guys that you fully accept them; Carell earns some strong laughs, while Rockwell, after initially overdoing it a bit, ends up channeling George W. in a way that feels quite satisfying.

Across the board in Vice, everyone has risen to the occasion of their individual challenges, none of them easy, to collectively pull off a political satire that both provokes great laughs and hits home with some tragic truths. Perhaps somewhere down the line McKay will do the same for some of the current crew bouncing off the walls in the White House.

Production companies: Gary Sanchez Productions, Plan B Distributor: Annapurna Pictures Cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Tyler Perry, Alison Pill, Eddie Marsan, Justin Kirk, LisaGay Hamilton, Jesse Plemons, Bill Camp, Don McManus, Lily Rabe, Shea Whigham Director-screenwriter: Adam McKay Producers: Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Will Farrell, Adam McKay, Kevin J. Messick Executive producers: Megan Ellison, Chelsea Barnard, Jillian Longnecker, Robyn Wholey, Jeff G. Waxman Director of photography: Greg Fraser Production designer: Patrice Vermette Costume designer: Susan Matheson Editor: Hank Corwin Music: Nicholas Britell Casting: Francine Maisler

Rated R, 131 minutes

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Vice takes scattershot aim at its targets, but writer-director Adam McKay hits some satisfying bullseyes -- and Christian Bale's transformation is a sight to behold.

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Christian Bale

Dick Cheney

Lynne Cheney

Steve Carell

Donald Rumsfeld

Sam Rockwell

George W. Bush

Alison Pill

Mary Cheney

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Vice: What the movie gets right and wrong about Dick Cheney

Christian Bale transforms himself to play Dick Cheney in the movie Vice. (Courtesy of Greig Fraser/Annapurna Pictures)

Editor's note: Have you ever wondered if the movie you just saw — that claimed to be based on a real story or historical events — was really accurate? So have we. With this year’s Oscars featuring historically based movies up for Best Picture honors, we wanted to help you sort out the facts from the dramatic liberties. (We've also fact-checked BlacKkKlansman and Green Book .) Warning, major spoilers and plot points ahead!

Adam McKay’s Vice presents a peculiar challenge to fact-checking. This impressionistic biopic about Vice President Dick Cheney and the run-up to the Iraq War might draw on reality, but it often takes a hard right into the surreal.

Sometimes that’s obvious, like when Dick and Lynne Cheney snuggle up in bed and have a passionate exchange about the path to power in Shakespearean verse. Lynne Cheney might have chaired the National Endowment for the Humanities, but iambic pentameter probably stayed at the office.

In other scenes though, the line between historic facts and poetic interpretation gets fuzzy. The movie offers dialogue about building the case for war against Iraq and justifying waterboarding that might not be verbatim, but it could reflect the broad thrust of Cheney’s role in the White House.

For Cheney’s defenders, one of the film’s biggest failings is the overall picture it paints of Cheney as a modern-day Rasputin, bending a pliant President George W. Bush to his will.

"There was never any question who was in charge, and that was George W. Bush," said Eric Edelman, Cheney’s deputy assistant for national security from 2001 to 2003. "I’m not aware that Dick Cheney ever acted independently of presidential direction."

We’ll see where the record backs up the Oscar-nominated film and where it doesn’t.

Here are the key plot-points we cover:

The civilian plane shootdown order on 9-11

Dominating the White House

Pushing the Iraq War

The reach for unfettered power

Justifying torture

A VW Beetle. Really?

In the movie: Cheney okays the shooting down of civilian planes on 9-11.

In reality: The official account largely backs this up, but leaves a little wiggle room.

Cheney (Christian Bale) takes a call in the White House bunker on the morning of 9-11, as Lynne Cheney (Amy Adams) looks on. (Courtesy of Greig Fraser/Annapurna Pictures)

Cheney is in a command bunker deep under the White House after al-Qaida terrorists take over four commercial planes. He picks up a call from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"Dick, there are still passenger planes in the air. I need rules of engagement," Rumsfeld says in the movie.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice suggests they call the president, airborne on Air Force One, but Cheney cuts her off.

"You have authorization to shoot down any aircraft deemed a threat," he says.

It’s not clear if it really happened that way. The 9-11 Commission report , the official study of what took place that day, left some wiggle room on whether Cheney took it on himself to authorize the downing of civilian planes. The key issue is the sequence of events.

The report said that by 10:15 a.m., Cheney okayed a shootdown.

It had a call logged between Cheney and Bush at 10:18 a.m., and said, "On Air Force One, the president's press secretary was taking notes; Ari Fleischer recorded that at 10:20, the president told him that he had authorized a shootdown of aircraft if necessary."

Cheney told the commission that he had spoken to the president minutes earlier, and Bush told investigators he recalled authorizing the shootdown order.

The report said "there is no documentary evidence for this call, but the relevant sources are incomplete."

At the end of the day, the movie is in line with the paper trail.

In the movie: Cheney aimed to run the White House.

In the movie, and in reality, Cheney crafts an unprecedented power-sharing relationship with President George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell). (Courtesy of Greig Fraser/Annapurna Pictures)

Vice is about power, and in one scene, it uses board game graphics to paint a picture of how Cheney filled as many key national security slots as he could with people who shared his views.

The scene opens with a meeting among Cheney, David Addington (Cheney’s legal counsel), Mary Matalin (Cheney’s top communications adviser), Paul Wolfowitz (deputy secretary of defense), Donald Rumsfeld (defense secretary) and Scooter Libby.

"As you all know, I’m Scooter Libby, Dick’s chief of staff," Libby says. "But I’m also a special adviser to the president."

As Libby talks, game pieces appear on the board game. At the end, the game piece representing Bush is surrounded by Cheney game pieces.

The Bush White House was organized in ways that gave Cheney’s office much more leverage than previous vice presidents. His staff, especially through Libby and Matalin, was fully interwoven with Bush’s.

"Matalin and Libby received the same information as the president’s closest advisers," wrote Gettysburg College political scientist Shirley Anne Warshaw in her 2009 book The Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney . "Nothing was kept from them. This extraordinary access allowed Cheney’s staff to be fully informed about all decisions about to reach the president’s desk and the options presented to him."

To be sure, the movie takes liberties. It has Cheney saying his team would get the daily intelligence briefing "before the president so we can get inside the decision curve."

Joyce Battle, principal researcher on the Iraq War files at George Washington University’s National Security Archives, told us she knows of no document to back that up.

Broadly though, the administration was packed with Cheney allies. His stint as defense secretary under Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush, and the rest of his Washington resume gave him many pre-existing relationships with other Washington power players. Wolfowitz had been his deputy at the Pentagon. Stephen Hadley, who also came from Cheney’s Pentagon team, landed a key national security post in the Bush White House.

But Edelman, Cheney’s deputy assistant for national security, said it is a myth that Cheney controlled some sort of a parallel administration inside the administration.

"Cheney had influence, he certainly helped recruit many senior officials across the government," Edelman said. "But he did not run some kind of rogue deep state."

Our takeaway: There is no question that Cheney had people he could call on in many corners of the administration.

In the movie: Cheney’s focus on the worst-case scenarios leads the country into war on false premises.

In Vice, Cheney teleconferences with national intelligence staff and demands to see raw, unfiltered reports, regardless of accuracy. (Courtesy of Greig Fraser/Annapurna Pictures)

The tension between what some intelligence offices were saying about al-Qaida and Iraq and what Cheney believed was going on plays out in several moments in the film. In one scene, Cheney is talking with Bush.

"It’s called the Office of Special Plans," Cheney says. "Tenet (CIA director) is not yet serious enough about the threat Saddam poses in the GWOT, or global war on terror. But I can promise you, this intelligence group will be."

Within the movie’s shifting timeline, it’s unclear when this invented exchange takes place. The Office of Special Plans emerged inside the Pentagon in September 2002. The office developed its own intelligence reports, sometimes at odds with what the rest of the intelligence community was saying, and briefed top White House staff.

In 2007, a Defense Department Inspector General report found that the office delivered conclusions that were "not supported by available intelligence," and in a fashion that "undercut" the intelligence community.

With 20/20 hindsight, the core error is clear. The administration’s main argument for attacking Iraq was that it supported terrorists, possessed weapons of mass destruction and was building its capacity to increase its arsenal. In a nationwide address , Bush spoke of "the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

After the United States and its allies took control, they found, according to the CIA , "Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capability was essentially destroyed in 1991." Saddam Hussein "aspired to develop a nuclear capability," the CIA said, but he "had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD."

Edelman rejects the idea that the movie’s conversation between Cheney and Bush about the Office of Special Plans ever happened. He said it distorts how the administration’s thinking evolved. Edelman acknowledges that Cheney and Bush were thinking about Saddam Hussein before 9-11, but they had no clear policy.

"Both believed that we needed to find a solution to the Saddam problem," Edelman said. "Whether that required war or not wasn’t clear until much later, in 2002, after the UN resolution and after the diplomacy at the UN failed."

That might be, but soon after the attacks, the administration was putting the pieces in place for military action.

In late November 2001, Rumsfeld went into a meeting about Iraq with General Tommy Franks, head of Central Command. Rumsfeld came with talking points that led with "Focus on WMD." Rumsfeld’s notes had ideas of what might trigger an attack. One was, "Dispute over WMD inspections? Start now thinking about inspection demands."

Given Cheney and Rumsfeld’s long history, there are grounds to link Cheney to efforts to build the case for war. But it’s worth noting that the movie misfires badly on some details.

At one point, the film has Rice telling Bush that the Israelis didn’t see Saddam as an immediate threat. In fact, Israel lobbied hard in favor of attacking Iraq .

In the movie: Cheney built the case, years in advance, to exert unfettered executive power.

The 9-11 terrorist attacks opened the door for Cheney to expand the reach of the presidency at the expense of congressional oversight. (Courtesy of Greig Fraser/Annapurna Pictures)

In a scene set in the mid 1970s, when Cheney was deputy chief of staff to President Gerald Ford, he meets with a Justice Department lawyer.

"I would like to reinstate executive authority," Cheney says. "How?"

The film’s narrator jumps in:

"Antonin Scalia, a young lawyer with the Justice Department, who would later go on to serve on the Supreme Court, rocked Dick’s world."

"Have you heard of the theory of the unitary executive?" Scalia says. "It’s an interpretation a few, like myself happen to believe, of Article Two of the Constitution that vests the president with absolute executive authority. And I mean absolute."

This is not a subtle moment: An image of a lion bringing down a gazelle flashes on the screen. The narrator comes back:

"Certain legal scholars believe that if the president does anything it must be legal because it’s the president," the man’s voice says. "To hell with checks and balances, especially during times of war. This was the power of kings, pharaohs, dictators."

This scene is about one step down from the mock Shakespearean bedroom dialogue. Yes, Scalia was in the Justice Department and joined Cheney and then Chief of Staff Rumsfeld in pushing Ford to veto an expansion of the Freedom of Information Act.

But after that, the scene is pure invention.

First of all, the phrase "unitary executive theory" didn’t come until later.

"The phrase was clearly around in the late 1980s, before Dick Cheney was vice president of the United States, but significantly not during Dick Cheney’s mid ‘70s service as deputy chief of staff in the Ford administration," said legal scholar Douglas Kmiec at Pepperdine School of Law.

Second, the film butchers the meaning of the term. The theory, legal scholars told us, says the president has ultimate control over whatever powers the executive branch has — not that it has unlimited powers.

"No serious advocate of the theory – not even Cheney – claims that anything the president does is legal," said Ilya Somin, professor of law at George Mason University..

In the movie: Cheney worked the legal process to justify torture.

In reality: He wouldn’t call it torture, but he definitely pushed for waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods.

Cheney was a key architect of the administration’s war on terror, including its most controversial elements, such as brutal interrogation and warrantless monitoring of private communications. (Courtesy of Greig Fraser/Annapurna Pictures)

There’s a scene when Bush, Cheney and other key players are talking about extracting information from the people the military captures:

Cheney: "We believe the Geneva Convention is open to... interpretation."

Tenet: "What exactly does that mean?"

Addington: "Stress positions, waterboarding, confined spaces, dogs."

Rumsfeld: "We’re calling it enhanced interrogation."

Bush: "We’re sure none of this fits under the definition of torture?"

Addington: "The U.S. doesn’t torture."

Cheney: "Therefore, if the U.S. does it, by definition, it can’t be torture."

Setting aside the invented dialogue and the closing line about what defines torture, the gist of the scene hews to the facts.

In January 2002, deputy assistant Attorney General John Yoo co-wrote a memo to explain why the Geneva Convention didn’t protect captured al-Qaida and Taliban members.

Yoo said that, among other reasons, "customary international law, whatever its source and content, does not bind the president or restrict the actions of the United States military, because it does not constitute federal law recognized under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution."

Now, the scene blends two strands together — holding suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and torturing them. On the issue of Guantanamo, Edelman told us, "Cheney clearly played a very large role in that policy, no question."

Yoo went on to write a memo justifying what most people would call torture . In November 2002, the top lawyer at the Defense Department wrote that under some circumstances, stress positions, waterboarding (described as "the use of a wet towel to induce the misperception of suffocation") and other harsh methods "would also be permissible."

Cheney has consistently defended waterboarding, in keeping with his movie portrayal.

"I think we did those things we needed to do to make certain that we were operating within the statutes and the laws," Cheney said in a 2015 interview .

In the movie: Cheney drove a VW Beetle in the mid 1970s.

In reality: He did.

As President Ford takes office, Cheney picks up Rumsfeld at Dulles Airport. He’s driving a VW Beetle.

"You’re still driving this chick magnet?" Rumsfeld says.

A Ford or a Chevy in any condition would fit the Cheney persona. It boggles the mind to imagine a man of his heft, both physical and symbolic, tucking himself behind the wheel of any import, much less a VW bug, but we’re persuaded that he did.

We asked Edelman if this detail was true.

"From a source very close to VP Cheney, 'he did drive a VW Beetle in the 1960s and 1970s until the floorboards rusted out. It was black,’" Edelman wrote.

Our Sources

Annapurna, Screenplay: Vice , accessed Jan. 23, 2019

9-11 Commission, Report , July 22, 2004

9-11 Commission Report, Wartime , July 22, 2004

U.S.Central Intelligence Agency, Special Review of Counterterrorism, Detention and Interrogation Activities , May 7, 2004

Presidential Studies Quarterly, The Contemporary Presidency: Cheney, Vice Presidential Power, and the War on Terror , March 2010

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Regime Strategic Intent , Sept. 30, 2004

National Security Archives, PR Push for Iraq War Preceded Intelligence Findings , Aug. 22, 2008

National Security Archives, John Yoo memo on Geneva Convention and other international law , Jan. 9, 2002

National Security Archives, John Yoo memo on legality of interrogation methods , Aug. 1, 2002

National Security Archives, William Haynes memo on harsh interrogation methods , Nov. 22, 2002

U.S. House of Representatives, Letter from Vice President Richard B. Cheney to the U.S. House of Representatives , Aug. 2, 2001

White House Archives, Remarks by Vice President Dick Cheney to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce , Nov. 14, 2001

White House Archives, The Vice President Appears on NBC's Meet the Press , Dec. 9, 2001

White House Archives, Interview of the Vice President by Jim Angle of Fox TV News , Dec. 11, 2001

Presidential Studies Quarterly, The contemporary presidency: Decision making in the Bush White House , June 2009

University of Nevada Las Vegas School of Law, Printz, the Unitary Executive, and the Fire in the Trash Can: Has Justice Scalia Picked the Court's Pocket? , 2001

Thomson Reuters, Today in 1974: Congress enacts amendments to the Freedom of Information Act over President Ford's veto , Nov. 21, 2014

The Volokh Conspiracy, Rethinking the Unitary Executive , May 3, 2018

U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Briefing on the Department of Defense Inspector General's report on the  activities of the Office of Special Plans prior to the war in Iraq , Feb. 9, 2007

U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, The Department of Defense, the Office of Special Plans and Iraq Pre-War Intelligence , Feb. 7, 2006

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senate Intelligence Committee Unveils Final Phase II Reports on Prewar Iraq Intelligence , June 5, 2008

National Security Archives, THE IRAQ WAR -- PART I:  The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001 , September 22, 2010

National Security Archives, The Rumsfeld talking points , Nov. 27, 2001

CNN, Bush: Don't wait for mushroom cloud , Nov. 8, 2002

Frontline, Cheney's law , accessed Feb 4, 2019

CBS News, Israel To U.S.: Don't Delay Iraq Attack , Aug. 18, 2002

Guardian,  Israel puts pressure on US to strike Iraq , Aug. 16, 2002

C-SPAN, Netanyahu's Expert Testimony on Iraq in 2002 , Sept. 12, 2002

University of Pennsylvania Law School, The Unitary Executive During the First Half Century , 1997

Yale Law Journal, The Unitary Executive and the Scope of Executive Power , Jan. 24, 2017

Yale Law School, Agency Autonomy and the Unitary Executive , 1990

U.S. Supreme Court, CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, et al. v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT  COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. , June 24, 2004

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, No openness required for Cheney energy task force , May 12, 2005

New York Times,  A Guide to the Memos on Torture , accessed Feb. 5, 2019

C-SPAN, Cheney interview at American Enterprise Institute , Sept. 9, 2011

Shirley Anne Warshaw, The Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney , 2009

CNN, Millions of Bush administration e-mails recovered , Dec. 14, 2009

Newsweek, The George W. Bush White House ‘Lost’ 22 Million Emails , Sept. 12, 2016

Playboy, Interview With Dick Cheney , March 1, 2015

Email interview, Eric Edelman, Practitioner-in-Residence, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Feb. 5, 2019

Email interview, Joyce Battle, director of the Iraq Documentation Project, National Security Archives, Feb. 5, 2019

Email interview, Tom Fitton, president, Judicial Watch, Jan. 23, 2019

Email interview, Ilya Somin, professor of law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia School of Law, Jan. 23, 2019

Email interview, Douglas Kmiec, professor of constitutional law, Pepperdine School of Law, Jan. 24, 2019

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Vice Review

Adam McKay is evolving into a fascinating auteur. In 2015 he made a sharp left turn in the subject matter department, going from movies about goofy anchormen and step brothers to the 2008 housing market crash -- but he maintained continuity in one crucial area: tone. The Big Short is far more serious material than Talladega Nights or The Other Guys (which, admittedly, has its own subtle economic commentary), but it's also a film highlighted with tremendous wit, laugh-out-loud material, and a perfect comedic touch.

We now have its spiritual sequel, Vice , which is, once again, a look back at the critical historical events that helped mold the world in which we currently live -- particularly those in the first decade of the 21st century. The subject is Dick Cheney, a man the film outright admits in its opening moments is an excessively secretive figure, and it in equal parts plays as both a highlight reel and dramatic expose -- showcasing many of the sinister and disturbing machinations that were kept hidden from public knowledge at the time. It's weighty, credible and at times shockingly intense, but what makes it sing is that McKay Touch.

Rather than being an adaptation, like The Big Short was, Vice is based on an original screenplay by Adam McKay, and those deeply embedded fingerprints drive what is one of the best films of the year. The movie takes you on a surprisingly epic journey, chronicling his rise from drunken college fail out to Vice President of the United States, and weaves a phenomenal story that is a complex mix of oddity, awfulness, revelation, and devastation... and that's all without mentioning the all-timer performances from its remarkable leads.

We first meet Dick ( Christian Bale ) as a slovenly drunk, hitting a turning point in his life when he gets arrested for driving while intoxicated. Motivation from his would-be wife, Lynne ( Amy Adams ), drives him to start to fix himself, and seven years later he finds himself a path via a congressional internship. With no actual ideology of his own, just an attraction to power, Dick hitches his wagon to Richard Nixon's brash and blunt Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Donald Rumsfeld ( Steve Carell ).

This was in 1969, and from there he finds his way into every Republican administration, his title becoming more prominent with each new President. His coup de grace, however, is performed in the year 2001 when he is able to exploit the presidency of George W. Bush ( Sam Rockwell ) to essentially become the most powerful man in the world and orchestrate some of the most significant events in modern history.

Biopics like these are occasionally problematic, as opting for a sprawling narrative over something more specific can sometimes make a film feel disjointed or slow, but Dick Cheney is, frankly, too fascinating a figure to succumb to these issues. He's not a particularly passionate or captivating persona (emphasized when shown on the campaign trail delivering a speech to a totally disengaged audience), but his stoicism and strategic mind keep you on the edge and curious about his process -- even if it's all history that you already know about. And, of course, these key chess moves all play out around Cheney's multiple heart attacks, telling Senator Patrick Leahy to go fuck himself on the floor of the Senate, and the infamous time he shot a man in the face during a hunting expedition.

Like he did with The Big Short , Adam McKay also includes some smart fourth-wall breaking to help handle some of the complex-yet-necessary exposition -- particularly through the film's mysterious but important narrator, played by Jesse Plemons -- and it's here where the writer/director's style is extra important and effective. As dirty as the word may seem in a world of entertainment, Vice can be described as an educational movie, but it's an easy-to-swallow pill because of the style and charisma of the teacher. We don't have Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explaining complex financial terms to us in this one, but we do have Dick Cheney's exemplary persuasion skills illustrated with a discussion about putting clown wigs on penises during a meeting with President Gerald Ford.

The story and storytelling are the reward you get for purchasing a ticket to Vice , but what is clearly selling the film are the transformative performances by Christian Bale and Amy Adams -- both of whom live up to the hype in every single way. In the case of the former, I'm still wondering how anybody considered the star of The Dark Knight and The Fighter and said, "That guy could look like a perfect clone of Dick Cheney," but the ultimate truth is that the results are absolutely stunning (with tremendous credit also belonging to the makeup department). The actor utterly vanishes into this part, matching every mannerism of the notorious politician, and it's a sight to behold. It's remarkable that Bale can be both a headliner star and the chameleon that he is, but it's a true testament to his incredible gifts.

Amy Adams' turn is more subtle on the transformative side of things, but she is a force to be reckoned with here. It's easy to make Lady Macbeth/"woman behind the man" comparisons, but that makes them no less accurate, as it's her relationship with her husband that motivates him to be the grimacing, power-hungry golem he becomes. And Adams makes you believe it. It's a power unlike anything she's wielded in any performance before -- long removed from Susan in Talladega Nights -- and some of the best work of her career.

It's always been easy to love Adam McKay's work, as his collaborations with Will Ferrell stand as some of the most hilarious, re-watchable comedies of the young millennium, but the work he is doing now is definitely next level. Vice is vital and important filmmaking, delivered in a unique and incredible way by an exceptional filmmaker. One can pray that he doesn't only delve into these arenas going forward, as the world needs his goofiness as well, but what's guaranteed is that anything he now takes on deserves special attention.

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.

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Irreverent, mature biopic about VP Dick Cheney.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Few positive messages here, but the movie demonstr

No positive role models. The characters are depict

Bar fighting. Man with twisted, broken leg. Car cr

Brief glimpse of naked male bottom, nonsexual. Mar

Very strong language, with uses of "f--k," "s--t,"

At first, the main character is a hard drinker who

Parents need to know that Vice is an irreverent biopic from writer/director Adam McKay ( The Big Short ) about Vice President Dick Cheney (Christian Bale), who served under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. Expect frequent strong language, with many uses of "f--k," "s--t," "son of a…

Positive Messages

Few positive messages here, but the movie demonstrates how terrible things can happen right under our noses -- and that sometimes our own defense mechanisms don't let us see them.

Positive Role Models

No positive role models. The characters are depicted as evil opportunists who are out to spread the politics of deception and opposition.

Violence & Scariness

Bar fighting. Man with twisted, broken leg. Car crash. Brief images (flashes) of war, torture, bombing, shooting, kidnapping. References to 9/11. Discussions about countries being bombed. Images of heart surgery.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Brief glimpse of naked male bottom, nonsexual. Married couple in bed together.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Very strong language, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," "son of a bitch," "goddamn," "a--hole," "hell," "crap," "piss," "hard-on," "jerked off," "Jesus Christ" (as an exclamation).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

At first, the main character is a hard drinker who gets very drunk, drives drunk, and is hung over. But the character eventually stops drinking for good. Scenes of social drinking. Smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Vice is an irreverent biopic from writer/director Adam McKay ( The Big Short ) about Vice President Dick Cheney ( Christian Bale ), who served under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. Expect frequent strong language, with many uses of "f--k," "s--t," "son of a bitch," and more. Heart surgery is shown briefly, and there are flashes of violence, including images of war, bombings, shooting, and torture. There's also fighting, a car crash, and an injury. A married couple is shown in bed together (not at all racy), and there's a brief, nonsexual glimpse of a naked male bottom. The main character starts out with a drinking problem; he gets drunk, drives drunk, and has a hangover. But he later stops drinking and never returns to it. Other characters drink socially; some smoke. Like The Big Short , this is an incendiary movie that may attract the attention of politically minded older teens. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (7)
• Kids say (13)

Based on 7 parent reviews

Glossy and genre bending

What's the story.

In VICE, young Dick Cheney ( Christian Bale ) is a hard drinker and a bar brawler; he gets thrown out of Yale and winds up in jail for drunk driving. His girlfriend, Lynne ( Amy Adams ), gives him an ultimatum, and Cheney agrees to straighten out. He becomes a congressional intern, starts working with Donald Rumsfeld ( Steve Carell ), and holds several positions in the White House, eventually losing his job when Jimmy Carter is elected president. Years later, Cheney is approached by George W. Bush ( Sam Rockwell ) to be Bush's running mate. Cheney reluctantly agrees, but only after he convinces Bush to let him take on some of the larger, "duller" responsibilities of the office of the president. When the 9/11 attacks occur, Cheney senses an opportunity to turn his position into one of enormous power, forever changing the way politics are played.

Is It Any Good?

A comedy veteran , writer/director Adam McKay brings a strong irreverence and some quirky humor to this biopic, yet it can't disguise its sheer outrage; its laughs come through openmouthed dismay. McKay uses a variety of unexpected tools in Vice , including a surprising narrator choice and offbeat little inserts and alternate realities (the movie has a funny false ending halfway through). An opening crawl claims that the movie is a true story, then says that since Cheney was so secretive, they just did the best they could. These touches help get the story down more easily, and certainly the tone often teeters toward satirical, which feels almost like vindication. But some viewers will still feel helplessly furious.

As with his previous drama, The Big Short , McKay sets aside the clean, colorful look of his comedies (the Anchorman movies, etc.) in favor of a washed-out, edgy look, with frequent use of hand-held cameras. The enormous canvas requires many helping hands, and viewers will find amazing actors in even the smallest roles. In bigger parts, Adams, Carell, and Rockwell do admirable work, but their roles are sidelined and not as fully fleshed out as the central one. Playing Cheney, Bale more than disappears. He hides; it's not a particularly personal performance, but it's skillful and highly effective. All in all, Vice feels like a much-needed, cleansing primal scream at politics.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Vice 's use of violence . Why do you think McKay decided to include flashes of war, shooting, explosions, torture, etc.? What purpose do these images serve? How do they make you feel?

How is drinking depicted? Is it glamorized? What are the consequences ?

How does the movie view Cheney? Would you say it's a biased or unbiased portrait? What's the difference?

What did you learn from the movie? How much do you suppose is based on truth? Did it inspire you to do additional research?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 25, 2018
• On DVD or streaming : April 2, 2019
• Cast : Christian Bale , Amy Adams , Sam Rockwell , Steve Carell
• Director : Adam McKay
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Annapurna Pictures
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : History
• Run time : 132 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language and some violent images
• Awards : Academy Award , Golden Globe
• Last updated : April 13, 2024

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Vice review: "Christian Bale outstrips all his previous transformations"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Less biopic than a howl of frustration, Vice is political satire at its keenest. Move over, Michael Moore

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Richard Bruce Cheney was the quiet man of American politics – the ultimate DC insider who rose through the ranks, waited his turn and bided his time. That time came in July 2000 when Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush asked him to be his running mate, an offer that enabled him to become – by most pundits’ estimation – the most powerful and influential vice president in the history of the United States. Were you to ask an Average Joe what he knew about Dick Cheney, though, you’d likely draw a blank. 

Yes, he might remember that embarrassing incident from 2006 when he shot a fellow quail hunter in the face, or a more recent mishap when he was persuaded to sign a waterboard kit by Sacha Baron Cohen. For the most part, though, the minutiae of Cheney’s life and legacy remain as elusive and enigmatic as the man himself – which one suspects is precisely how the man himself likes it. Over 132 hilarious, acerbic and coruscating minutes, Vice takes a wrecking ball to that wall of secrecy. Charting a course from Cheney’s unpromising origins as a drunken Yale drop-out in ’60s Wyoming to his de facto shadow presidency in Dubya’s White House, writer-director Adam McKay paints his subject as an unremarkable mediocrity who learned how to stealthily interpolate himself into the corridors of power. 

Pensive, taciturn and essentially unknowable, the Cheney we see in Vice is the complete antithesis of a public figure. Yet it was this very anonymity, the director suggests, that enabled him to ascend unnoticed, extending and consolidating his authority to the point where he could pursue his aggressive conservative agenda (and OK, those controversial “enforced interrogation techniques”) totally unchallenged. 

Employing the same take-no-prisoners, fourth wall-shattering aesthetic he used to unpick the global financial crisis in The Big Short, McKay populates his film with a rogue’s gallery of Beltway notables. Look, there’s Steve Carell as a flamboyant Donald Rumsfeld! Tyler Perry as a po-faced Colin Powell! Bill Camp as Gerald Ford and LisaGay Hamilton as Condoleezza Rice! On and on it goes, reaching its zenith when Sam Rockwell swaggers into the picture as a chicken wing-chomping, checked shirt-wearing George Bush Junior. 

There’s even a cameo from Donald J. Trump, fleetingly seen in a montage of ’80s excess alongside Jane Fonda and The A-Team’s Mr. T. Rather more pivotal to the narrative is Amy Adams as Cheney’s blonde-coiffed wife Lynne, an aspiring Lady Macbeth whose Shakespearean ambitions are hammered home in a daring scene in which she and her husband ponder Dubya’s proposition in iambic pentameter. It is her description of the young Cheney as “a big, fat, piss-soaked zero” that inspires him to get his act together, while his fierce devotion to her is revealed in a funeral sequence in which he ruthlessly tells her father they want nothing more to do with him. 

It takes longer to establish the relevance of the unnamed narrator figure played by Jesse Plemons (Fargo), though it turns out that this character, too, has a crucial part to play in Cheney’s life story. At the end of the day, though, you can’t tell that story without a mighty big Dick. And Vice has a massive one in every department in Christian Bale, the Welsh-born actor outstripping all of his previous on-screen transformations ( The Machinist , The Fighter , American Hustle ) with a bulky, tonsured, prosthetic-assisted makeover that is a shoo-in for this year’s Best Make-Up Oscar. 

As stunning as the exterior is, however, it is the way Bale vanishes inside it that truly impresses. Witness the moment on 9/11 when he coldly orders commercial planes to be shot down if it is suspected they have been hijacked, or his final to-camera address when he tells us he “will not apologise” for the multiple human rights abuses and other outrages that have taken place on his watch.

It’s not so long ago that McKay was only known for such goofball farces as Step Brothers , Anchorman , and Talladega Nights . In a few short years, he’s recreated himself as an Oscar-winning scourge of the American right, a metamorphosis almost as breathtaking as his current leading man’s. 

Yet Vice is an admonishment to the left as well, not to mention a stinging rebuke to an electorate that allowed their country to be taken over from within. We get the leaders who we deserve, the film appears to be warning us – particularly when we are not paying attention.

For more hotly anticipated films, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in store for 2019 - and while you're at it, why not take a look at the best movies of 2018 that you might have missed?

• Release date: Out now (US)/January 25 (UK)
• Certificate: R (US)/15 (UK)
• Running time: 132 mins

Jane Crowther is a contributing editor to Total Film magazine, having formerly been the longtime Editor, as well as serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the Film Group here at Future Plc, which covers Total Film, SFX, and numerous TV and women's interest brands. Jane is also the vice-chair of The Critics' Circle and a BAFTA member. You'll find Jane on GamesRadar+ exploring the biggest movies in the world and living up to her reputation as one of the most authoritative voices on film in the industry. 

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Metacritic reviews

• 100 The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy Through wit, surprise and an irrepressible ballsiness comes a scorching humor that neither curdles nor becomes exhausted.
• 88 USA Today Brian Truitt USA Today Brian Truitt Exquisitely crafted...It’s a strange little amalgamation that totally works: a vicious Shakespearean satire about power-hungry mind-sets, stealth corruption, American ambition and the current state of divided affairs in our country, but also a quasi-fictional go-for-broke biopic about a political leader we really don't know at all.
• 80 The Guardian Peter Bradshaw The Guardian Peter Bradshaw Bale brilliantly captures the former vice-president’s bland magnificence.
• 80 Empire Andrew Lowry Empire Andrew Lowry An acting masterclass that neither pulls its punches nor sacrifices detail to pander to a mass audience, this is smart filmmaking from a director who gets better with every film — and a near career-best from Bale, which is saying something.
• 79 IGN William Bibbiani IGN William Bibbiani Vice is a funny and vicious political commentary, revealing in clear, thrilling detail a man whom filmmaker Adam McKay considers one of the most insidious and dangerous political figures of the last fifty years. But that viciousness also makes Vice one-sided, even reductive.
• 67 IndieWire Eric Kohn IndieWire Eric Kohn Buoyed by a brilliant transformation by Christian Bale, it offers a smart and detailed overview of Cheney’s elaborate ruse to exploit the country’s highest authority, but undercuts its authority with crass and often clunky humor that overstates the nature of Cheney’s villainy. Lame jokes just get in the way when the bad guys are hiding in plain sight.
• 60 Variety Owen Gleiberman Variety Owen Gleiberman The movie, though it pretends to reveal how power works, is ultimately content to remain on the outside, sticking its finger in the eye of power.
• 50 Slant Magazine Chuck Bowen Slant Magazine Chuck Bowen Vice is as noisy as the media landscape that writer-director Adam McKay holds in contempt.
• 25 The Film Stage Michael Snydel The Film Stage Michael Snydel History has validated the view of these people as one of the major causes of modern ills, but Vice is so concerned with wallowing in the past that it has no idea how to say anything new.
• 20 TheWrap TheWrap Where is the joke here, aside from Bale acting as though he’s in a serious, dramatic movie in which he goes Method by adding on pounds and grunting his way through a half-baked performance? This is neither funny nor insightful.
• See all 54 reviews on Metacritic.com
• See all external reviews for Vice

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See that lost, uncertain look in Thomas Jane ’s eyes in that picture above? It’s there in every scene in “Vice,” almost to the degree that I think he’s winking at the audience at times— Yes, I know this is B-movie junk, but I needed the paycheck. Just go with it. The problem with “Vice” is that it can’t even fulfill those low, for-the-money, pure escapism expectations. It’s one of those nearly straight-to-VOD pieces that fluctuates between boring and offensive, never rising above either adjective. Some will dismiss it by saying it’s so ineffective as to never really aggravate critical faculties, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a complete waste of time and talent as well.

In a not-too-distant future, the elite have access to a virtual reality playground that allows them to live out their wildest fantasies with “ Blade Runner ”-esque androids who look and behave exactly like real people. Always wanted to rob a bank and shoot your way out of the ensuing conflict? Go to Vice, run by the above-the-law Julian ( Bruce Willis ). Of course, as in all Hollywood condemnations of violent video game culture (which is what this is at its core), the violence of this fantasy world bleeds out into the real world, making problems for tough-as-nails cop Roy (Jane). The paper-thin idea being that if people are allowed to give into their wildest fantasies, they won’t be able to distinguish between them and reality. And so the people who get ultra-violent in the world of Vice continue that in Roy’s district, leading him to target Julian as public enemy #1.

Meanwhile, Kelly ( Ambyr Childers , so great in the underrated “ We Are What We Are ”), a replicant in the world of Vice who goes through every day thinking that’s a special one and usually ends up killed, has become self-aware. Without warning, her system malfunctions, and she’s overloaded with memories she shouldn’t have. Self-aware, she goes on the run, even tracking down her creator and helping Roy topple the corrupt adult playground of Vice.

If it sounds familiar, it should. Borrowing liberally from classics like “Blade Runner” and dozens of quasi-sci-fi non-classics like “ Virtuosity ,” “Vice” feels as artificially replicated as the androids in its narrative. Judged superficially, “Vice” does nothing that hasn’t been done before with more style and substance. The movie is visually dull even when judged against its low-budget, essentially straight-to-VOD brethren. Most people don’t come to movies like “Vice” for complex visual storytelling, but that doesn’t mean we should excuse cheap sets, dull framing and other signs of lazy filmmaking.

Even if it didn’t work as art or escapism, “Vice” wastes an opportunity for social commentary as well. Roy is a non-character, almost so inconsequential to the storyline that poor Jane doesn’t look like he’s been directed to do anything in the climactic scenes. Even the director realized they didn’t need him. Worst of all, “Vice” is about giving personality and life to an android female who has been created as a plaything for men to abuse and behave with without repercussions. And yet turning Kelly self-aware doesn’t make her confident and driven. It sends her back into the arms of her male creator, turning her into a damsel-in-distress who can only be saved by a man. That’s a bad B-movie concept of identity. And by the time director Brian A. Miller finally gives Kelly something to do, it’s in the most generic “tough action movie chick” way possible. The talented Childers deserves so much better. Heck, so does Thomas Jane.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

Vice (2015)

Rated R violence, language and some sexual content/nudity

Ambyr Childers as Kelly

Bruce Willis as Julian

Thomas Jane as Roy

Bryan Greenberg as Evan

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'The Bad Guardian' Review: Melissa Joan Hart delivers fierce performance in Lifetime's thriller drama movie

Contains spoilers for Lifetime's 'The Bad Guardian'

WEST VIRGINIA, USA: Lifetime's latest heart-pounding thriller, ' The Bad Guardian', tackles the complex and timely issue of guardianship abuse. Premiered on May 18, the film stars Melissa Joan Hart and La La Anthony in a gripping narrative that will leave you glued to the screen.

Hart portrays a determined daughter locked in a desperate battle to save her father from the clutches of a corrupt court-appointed guardian, played by Anthony. 'The Bad Guardian' promises to be a suspenseful exploration of power, manipulation, and the lengths we go to protect those we love.

But is the film just another run-of-the-mill Lifetime movie, or does it offer a deeper commentary on the vulnerabilities within the legal system? Let's examine its plot, performances, and its potential to spark conversations about a critical real-world issue.

A gripping fight for justice in Lifetime's 'The Bad Guardian' 

'The Bad Guardian' packs the emotional punch and suspense and, it tackles a relevant and unsettling issue: guardian abuse. Melissa Joan Hart shines as Leigh, a daughter fiercely determined to protect her father, Jason (Eric Pierpoint), from the manipulative clutches of court-appointed guardian, Janet (La La Anthony).

The film starts strong, establishing a loving parent-child bond between Leigh and Jason. Janet's initial charm quickly dissolves as her true motives - greed and power - come to light. We witness the devastating consequences of her actions, from stripping Jason of his possessions to denying him crucial medical care.

Hart delivers a powerful performance, portraying a daughter pushed to the brink. We see her transform from helpless to determined as she fights a corrupt system that seems stacked against her. Anthony is equally captivating as the chillingly cold and calculating Janet. The supporting cast adds depth, with characters who become unwilling pawns in Janet's game.

'The Bad Guardian' doesn't shy away from the darkness of its subject matter. Yet, it also celebrates unwavering familial love and the power of resilience. While the film might veer towards the dramatic at times, it succeeds in raising awareness about a critical issue and offers a satisfying conclusion where good prevails over evil.

Melissa Joan Hart shines as a fierce protector in 'The Bad Guardian'

Melissa Joan Hart sheds her lighter comedic persona in Lifetime's 'The Bad Guardian,' taking on a powerful and emotional role as Leigh. This is a far cry from her Nickelodeon days, showcasing her impressive dramatic range.

Hart embodies the fierce protectiveness of a daughter determined to save her father from a dangerous situation. We see her journey from initial confusion to full-blown mama bear mode as she uncovers the sinister intentions of the court-appointed guardian. Her emotional vulnerability shines through when faced with her father's decline, but her determination to fight for him is unwavering.

Hart's performance is a compelling blend of strength and vulnerability. She conveys Leigh's desperation and growing fear with a rawness that pulls viewers into the heart of the story. This is a far cry from the lighthearted characters she's known for, but it's a testament to her talent as an actress.

In 'The Bad Guardian,' Melissa Joan Hart proves she can command the screen in a dramatic role just as effectively as she can in a comedic one.

'The Bad Guardian' is available for streaming on Lifetime.

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