Everything you already knew about George "W." Bush

Does anyone not yet know what they think of George W. Bush? Any holdouts still trying to decide whether our 43rd president, he of the historically low approval ratings, has been a disgrace or a paragon? Those who haven't paid attention to the masses of ink devoted to Bush's policies and personality may find some surprises in "W.," Oliver Stone's episodic drama about the still-sitting president. For the rest of us, we've heard it all before: the bad-boy past involving excessive drinking, the marriage to a shy librarian, the religious conversion, the domineering vice president, the hastily entered war, the weapons of mass destruction that were never there.

Stone's got an enormous challenge here as a filmmaker: How do you make very recent (and thoroughly dissected) history feel fresh? And how do you interest an audience in a lame-duck political figure whose eight-year spotlight is fading fast? Unfortunately, perhaps because of the speed at which the film was made (it was rushed through production in order to hit theaters during election season), "W." emerges as a not particularly thoughtful biopic. Its scenes, which float back and forth in time, seem almost randomly ordered, its insights pat and familiar. Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser are hardly the first to identify Bush's occasionally troubled relationship with his father, George H.W. Bush, as a key one in his life, or to hint that the younger Bush's presidential aspirations may have been flavored by a desire to avenge his father's 1992 defeat.

And what "W." never quite does is bring us inside Bush's head, in the way Curtis Sittenfeld's fine recent novel "American Wife" let us imagine what goes into being Laura Bush. Josh Brolin's portrayal of Bush is detailed, thoughtful and rarely cartoony (except for his depiction of Bush's greedy table manners), and he's nailed the president's breezy Texas diction and occasionally forlorn squint. But, outside of a tight final close-up that's a study in confused wonderment, there's little Brolin can do here beyond impersonation. We know the stories "W." pieces together, and we've already formed our opinion of the man; Brolin's hard work can't change that.

But the pleasures "W." does offer are in the sharp portraits drawn by its cast, and while this movie is no comedy (though you'd be forgiven for thinking it was, based on the trailer), many of them are wickedly funny. Richard Dreyfuss, glowering in doorways, is a scheming Dick Cheney; he looks diabolic even in his oddly strained half-smile. Thandie Newton uncannily swallows her words precisely in the way Condoleezza Rice does. As Karl Rove, Toby Jones hovers near Bush like a persistent bug.

And James Cromwell steals the movie with a wrenchingly good performance as Bush Sr. (whom he doesn't resemble at all, but Cromwell quickly makes you forget that), depicted here as a decent, old-school man who loves his slapdash son but is mystified by him and by the way the world is changing. The elder Bush's devastation upon losing to Bill Clinton in 1992 brings "W." to a quiet halt; the man seems to be broken before our eyes. "I thought the [Persian Gulf] war would have carried us," he says in a tiny, fragile voice. "I won that war."

"W." has a handsome look to it: Stone's director of photography Phedon Papamichael does jittery handheld work in the scenes with the young, hard-drinking Bush, and gets in close to the cast's grim faces during the White House meetings to discuss the invasion of Iraq. And Stone has some ironic fun (though he overdoes it) with a jaunty soundtrack that includes "Robin Hood" and "Yellow Rose of Texas." But ultimately "W." feels flat, despite the good work of the cast. At its center is a character who remains elusive; a man who isn't there.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725

or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com