Oliver Stone’s “W.” would have been funnier if it wasn’t true.

Okay, maybe it’s not exactly true but like the movie “Titanic” even if the stories are fabricated, it doesn’t change the fact that the ship still went down.

Written by Stanley Weiser (“Wall Street”), “W.” tells the story of George W. Bush from the beginning of his college years to the turbulent reactions of his mistakes made from the Second Gulf War. Josh Brolin (“No Country For Old Men”) heads the cast as our 43rd President of the United States. We follow “Jr.” through the dealing of his father issues, employment issues, drinking issues, women issues and political issues. Needless to say, he has multiple issues.

The opening of the film lets us sit in on a meeting of the administration trying to figure out the perfect name for the eventual “Axis of Evil.” Bush and his cronies are shown to be creative and shifty in the quest for attaining success in their agendas. The intriguing component of the film is to discover how much does Bush control his people or how much do they control him.

That is the most entertaining aspect of the film as well. This is evident in the scene where Dick Cheney, who Bush refers to as “Vice”, have lunch together and discuss signing a document approving the torturing of detainees. The dialog intertwines Cheney’s manipulation with Bush’s ignorance into this demonstration of power. As Cheney leaves, Bush tells him “keep your ego in check.” It is interesting to see the character of George Bush stand up for his ideals even though you can see that he clearly doesn’t hold the power.

The most difficult thing about analyzing the film is setting aside your own political views and examining “W.” as what it is: a fictionalized reenactment.

Brolin gives Bush a Lt. Colonel Kilgore aura-“I love the smell of napalm in the morning” guy from “Apocalypse Now”- about him that you feel is untouchable, even from early on in his college days. I don’t mean protection by his Bush name or his daddy’s connections but rather ignorance to his own flaws. This leads to the humanization of a man who most consider incompetent.

The film slightly subsided my anger and disgust for this seemingly inept president into empathy. Not that Oliver Stone’s fictionalized movie changed my mindset but he did allow me to see a glimpse of reason behind the man who appears to defy logic by leading this nation without a clue. If nothing else can be said in favor of Bush’s character, at least he is ambitious. Nothing stands in his way to achieve his goals even if they are misconstrued.

There are too many characters in this film to go over in a single article. However, the main players are easily recognizable.

Richard Dreyfuss executes a perfect, yet scary Dick Cheney. We can only hope that art does not imitate true life in this case. At one point Cheney states, “There is no exit strategy” when talking about troop removal.

Thandie Newton’s Condoleezza Rice provides comic relief throughout the film but unfortunately fails to provide depth into the real person who is so highly revered in Bush’s administration.

Scott Glenn plays Donald Rumsfeld with the goal of achieving laughs, much like Newton, by portraying the Secretary of Defense as flighty and nonsensical. There’s a line from Bush in the film proclaiming Rumsfeld has mentally lost it.

Elizabeth Banks is a nice fit as First Lady Laura Bush whose personality is as vague as her real life counterpart.

James Cromwell lacks the physical likeness to his character George Bush Sr. but his range between passive and aggressive patriarch solidifies his casting.

The bright spot in the film, aside from Brolin, is Jeffrey Wright’s performance as the only person with a conscious in the group, Colin Powell. While Powell tries to understand the logic behind the Iraqi invasion, you can feel the dread of a lone sheep among a pack of wolves.

So put your politics aside and go be entertained by a film critiquing our current administration, which can only be made in the U.S.A. However, expect more “Natural Born Killers” than “JFK.”

Gregory Westcott can be reached at [email protected]