Vice is the comic biopic of Dick Cheney by writer-director Adam McKay (The Big Short). Cheney is played by a physically transformed and unrecognizable Christian Bale.
McKay’s take is that Cheney’s driving motivation and genius is the accumulation and exercise of power – to whatever end and by whatever means. McKay also sees Cheney as a mediocre slacker molded and fueled by Lynne Cheney (Amy Adams), whose own ambitions were limited in the 1960s by her gender. So, this is a tale of ruthless grasping along the lines of Macbeth or House of Cards, only mostly non-fiction.
McKay drops in the horrifying real impacts of Cheney’s exercise of power, but this is mostly a very funny movie. Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney’s mentor in power-grabbing, and George W. Bush, Cheney’s stooge, are played for laughs in very broad performances by Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell. McKay also tosses in a funny faux ending and has Dick and Lynne, in bed for the night, erupt in Shakespearean dialogue. Jesse Plemons plays a fictional Everyman narrator.
Bale’s performance is extraordinary, and goes well beyond the impeccable impersonation, down to every Cheney mannerism – stoneface, sneer and grunt. Adams is excellent as his Lady Macbeth. So is the rest of the fine cast, especially Alsion Pil as lesbian daughter Mary, Tyler Perry as Colin Powell and Shea Whigham as Lynne Cheney’s probably murderous father.
Vice is pretty good history, biography from a sharp point of view and a damn entertaining movie.