W Movie Reviews

Oliver Stone's film on U.S. President George W. Bush, titled W., was released to mixed reviews upon its 2008 release. Reviews for W. generally hailed Josh Brolin's "pitch-perfect" performance of Bush, but panned its "overly conventional" screenplay.¹ ² More reviews of W. will be listed here when they become available.

Roger Ebert gave W. a full four-star review, hailing it as a "fascinating" film. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter wrote in his review that W. was "a bold but imperfect film," stating it "hopscotched" over Bush's career too much. Honeycutt did, however, praise W.'s timeliness.³ ¹

Variety's Todd McCarthy criticized W. for being neither "a scorching satire or an outright tragedy," but instead a flawed movie with "pithy" interludes and "sophomoric" song choices. McCarthy also thought the movie was weakened by a "lack of perspective" since Bush was still president when it was made.²

Mike Goodridge of Screen Daily thought W. would be "better appreciated" in future years, but thought it "[held] up as a dramatized character study of the father and son presidents." Critic Emanuel Levy wrote in his review that W. was simply "too late, too little, too restrained and too conventional."⁴ ⁵

Fast Facts

Release date: October 17, 2008

Director: Oliver Stone

Producers: Oliver Stone, Ethan Smith, Bill Block and Moritz Borman

Screenwriter: Stanley Weiser

Distributor: Lionsgate

Original title: Bush⁶

Stone says W "not as psychologically heavy" as his 1995 Oscar-nominated Richard Nixon biopic, Nixon⁷

Oliver Stone and George W. Bush both attended Yale around the same time, though Stone doesn't remember meeting Bush then⁸