By Blake Penfield, Contributing Writer

Director Oliver Stone surprised a lot of folks with his willingness to address extremely tender and controversial modern events with 2006’s World Trade Center. Most people did not quite know what to think – was it too soon? Was it morally permissible to profit financially from the single greatest tragedy our country has faced in 60 years? With these questions still freshly percolating in our heads, Stone once again slams us with a movie premising on controversial current events. And I do mean current events. Like, now current.

While presidential biopics are not completely uncharted waters (especially for Stone who directed Nixon and JFK prior to W.), a biopic about a president currently occupying the White House is completely unknown. Even Nixon did not come out until a year after Richard Nixon’s death. Compound that with the fact that a film as politically charged and pertinent as this one was released less than a month prior to the presidential election, and you get a sense of the amount of audacity surrounding W.’s release.

I say all that to say this: the movie has caused more controversy than a Harry Potter novel at a Christian book club. The advertisements have been none-too subtle about the director’s take on the titular character. Commercials depict George W. Bush committing acts of idiocy with George Thoro- ood’s song One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer playing in the background. Posters show an exasperated and confused Bush with his head resting on slumped arms in the oval office. The tagline for the film is “A Life Misunderestimated.” The audience already knows what the message of the film is going to be before they even sit down in the theatre.

However, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the movie’s premise, the key question is going to be this: is the flick any good? Well, it’s not bad but it’s not too good either. The most accurate way I can describe the film is aggressively mediocre.

For W. to be at all engaging, you have to buy into Stone’s claim that George W. Bush has daddy issues on an Indiana Jonesian level. According to Stone, every action George W. has done, every job he has undertaken and every political position he has held was an attempt to earn his father’s love and respect. If you do not pick up on this notion initially, do not worry. The movie will bring it up at least 143 more times by the time the credits roll.

And that is really what I mean by “aggressively mediocre.” Stone is no believer in the scalpel here. He uses a hammer that puts Mjolnir to shame (Wikipedia that if you do not get it, so you can appreciate how pretentious I am). The idea of W.’s motives being centered on a never-ending pursuit of his father’s respect is an interesting one but not interesting enough to explore for an entire two hours. Yet, that is exactly what it does. The film wields this psychological motivation around with such a sense of selfimp ortance, you would think it discovered the cure for cancer.

A similarly blunt and egregious approach is given to how the film handles the Iraq War. The script strips the president’s decision to go to war of any shades of gray. The audience is told two definitive things about the war: 1) Bush only resolved to go to war because Dick Cheney manipulated him, and 2) Cheney is a more purely evil being than Lex Luthor, the Joker and George Lucas all wrapped into one.

The performances, for the most part, are very good. Josh Brolin is fantastic as George W. Bush. He may not look anything like the president but he certainly has the mannerisms and vocal syntax down. Richard Dreyfus also is exceptional (and evil) in his role as Dick Cheney. Other characters, however, are further evidence of Stone’s preference of the hammer over the scalpel. By and large, many of the characters come off as more of an SNL parody than a nuanced serious human being. The performers playing Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell are especially guilty of this.

Now, people can say all they want about Stone’s politics and views and ethics, but they cannot take away from the fact the man is a very talented director. For a film with as little going on story-wise as this one, pacing is never a problem. The shots are never static, and the audience constantly is being presented with things to think about (although the “daddy issue” thing accounts for about half of that). The entire two hours go by quickly with no real room for boredom.

Whether you like it or not, Stone has been given a big, loud pulpit to preach his political views. Questions about whether an entertainer’s ideas should be given so much power of persuasion essentially are irrelevant. If you are a staunch Bush supporter, this film will not sway you. If you are a staunch Bush critic, this film really will not give you any more ammunition. The film is interesting enough to warrant a viewing but too mediocre to transcend any inherent limitations of the film media.

If Stone’s trend continues, we can all look forward to the motion picture Obama in 2010.