Adam McKay, a longtime collaborator of former George W. Bush impersonator Will Ferrell (whose Gary Sanchez Productions had a hand in creating Vice), has a proven track record of finding the comedic in the tragic–most particularly when it comes to looking back at recent American history and governmental slights (see: The Big Short). With Vice, McKay wields his knack for highlighting the twisted humor of Amérique le freak and its hypocrisy with his most no holds barred bitingness yet.
With the power of both the writer and director roles (something surely Dick Cheney would want for himself if he was in the film biz), McKay makes no bones about his feelings for the Republican party and its many rogue members that have lived on in especial infamy from the Bush II administration, Cheney being the most overt figure. Though his spectral presence has aided him in eking by in the past, McKay makes up for lost time with a total and unapologetic skewering–made further effortless by Christian Bale’s experience playing the biggest sociopath in literary history, Patrick Bateman. Easing into his portrayal by starting out in the physical guise of Cheney’s “ne’er do well” days (though, in all honesty, they never seemed to stop, only evolved into more sinister and undercutting activities), the film commences in 1963, just as Cheney is getting his second DWI at the age of twenty-two.
Like Bush Jr., Cheney’s fondness for the drink made focusing on his Yale education something of a challenge (this connection was undoubtedly one of the few they shared, other than an inexplicable respect for Bush Sr.). Fortunately (or unfortunately, for the Americans and Iraqis that would suffer at Cheney’s frail yet powerful hand), his high school sweetheart-cum-new wife, Lynne (Amy Adams), gives him an ultimatum, “Can you change or not?” Seeming to become “Dick Cheney, stoic with Grinch heart” in that moment, he assures, “I’ll never disappoint you again, Lynne.” Signs of his cold nature are peppered even earlier on, as he’s forced to take a job hanging power lines in Wyoming (the very epitome of having no authority). Witnessing a fellow worker fall to the ground and break his leg, Cheney stares at the protruding bone with something like a combination of lust and emotionlessness. A combination that would serve him well as he rose through the ranks of government at a time when it was especially easy for any white man breathing to do so.
Considering Cheney’s ever-growing amorality in a quest to ensure never disappointing Lynne again, the fates cruelly align to initiate his political start during the Nixon administration (the very one that set the precedent for corruption in the majority of subsequent modern presidencies–though we all know Warren G. Harding was the original maestro of corruption, as evidenced by Teapot Dome, fittingly in Cheney’s own Wyoming). It was here he fell in league with Donald Rumsfeld (played to perfection by Steve Carrell), who took a shine to Cheney’s malleability and innate “understanding” of how government worked (and works)–that is to say, on a tautly wound bed of secrets that only the most privileged can peek under the covers to see. Cheney knew from the outset he wanted to be part of that elite group of peeping Toms, his eyes wide as Rummy explains to him that because of a private conversation between Nixon and Kissinger outside the monitored confines of the Oval Office, the lives of hundreds of thousands of people will be forever changed as they “come to a consensus” about bombing Cambodia. This notion of white men without empathy controlling such incredible forces of other people’s destiny from beige, fluorescently lit rooms is something McKay drives home several times throughout the film.
Rumsfeld, unable to curry enough favor with the right members of Nixon’s inner circle, soon finds himself exiled to Brussels as a U.S. Ambassador for NATO. Without his mentor, Cheney appears briefly lost at sea before the scandal-ridden presidency runs itself off the road of respectability, making it very fortunate indeed that Nixon never pulled Rumsfeld, along with Cheney, into his cabal (despite Nixon being recorded as saying of Rummy, “He’s a ruthless little bastard. You can be sure of that”).
With the ascent of Gerald Ford to power, Rummy becomes the youngest Secretary of Defense (later, under Bush II, he would be the second oldest), while Cheney becomes the youngest Chief of Staff, establishing the most firm members of the eventual Bush “boys'” club. If this all sounds like a very robust amount of history, in Vice, we’re still roughly only at the end of Act One, as McKay determines to cover all the ground that leads to Cheney invoking the unitary executive theory, a “constitutional law holding that the President possesses the power to control the entire executive branch.”
With Jimmy Carter’s presidential win in 1976, Cheney was forced out of the White House arena and back to Wyoming, where he campaigned for a seat in the House of Representatives. It was around this time that, after enduring his first of five heart attacks (perhaps serving to dull the metaphor behind what having a heart is supposed to entail), Lynne the most secretly power-hungry of all, does her best imitation of Eva Perón as she campaigns on behalf of her husband while he’s ordered to bed rest, appealing to the common man as only a descendant of Mormon pioneers could. For as much as the movie focuses on Dick, it does not lose sight of Lynne and her artful puppeteering, stemmed from the psychology of having an abusive father that made her and her mother feel powerless.
Somewhat in the stylized vein of McKay’s much underrated Casa de mi Padre, there are a number of “spoof” moments that do not typically exist in political films, like when McKay wields Alfred Molina as a waiter offering Cheney and his lackeys up a menu of Constitutional gray areas that will allow them to do “whatever the fuck you want.” Or when McKay chooses to jokingly put up credits at the moment in Cheney’s life after Bush I, when he splits his time between Wyoming and Virginia to breed award-winning golden retrievers with Lynne. And yes, it’s true, his political narrative should’ve ended when Clinton came in. It is only as a direct result of George W.’s (played possibly best of all by Sam Rockwell) daddy issues that he is plucked back out of obscurity. While Lynne reminds him that he always referred to the VP position as a nothing job, Dick, as usual, sees a nefarious opportunity where no one else does. A stack of teacups stacked atop one another and atop one another, ever so delicately, is used to represent that when the stack falls, it could of course fall anywhere. But until it does, Cheney will take his chances in continuing to stack. Something he does with Bush as his own little willing puppet the way he has been for Lynne.
With the defining moment of the Bush presidency being 9/11, it is Cheney who swoops in to seize yet another nefarious opportunity, using lawyer John Yoo to help him draft a document that highlights the unitary executive theory for Bush (merely an extension of Cheney) to use as the so-called War on Terror escalates. In the background of it all, McKay explains the development of conservative think tanks, filled with focus groups that determine the strategic use of phrases like “death tax” instead of “estate tax” and “climate change” instead of “global warming.” How members of these focus groups were largely confused by government messaging explaining the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, leading Cheney to take advantage of painting Iraq as the villain for his own (and Halliburton’s) financial gain despite Afghanistan being the clear culprit. While ignoring bin Laden, the government’s need to create a concrete link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq leads them to publicly name check Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as having been an Iraqi consorter with bin Laden. al-Zarqawi would go on to found ISIS as a result of this newfound clout.
If you couldn’t guess by now from the plot, McKay’s intent is as much to make us all remember that we’ve endured shit-tastic presidencies (even via vice presidencies) before as it is to make us see that we ourselves have been fools to so blindly let history repeat itself (the segments in the movie likening most humans to monkeys who want their senses dulled at the end of the day are helpful if not condescending to grasping why this is).
While the general critique of the movie has been its convoluted structure (again, as McKay points out, maybe it’s because America thrives on not wanting to think during its free time) and preaching to the choir nature, it is of value to those who do not necessarily remember living through Bush II. McKay wants us to see that monsters are only created when they go unchecked for too long. Hence, Trump. Who makes a cameo in the 80s portion of the narrative with his piles of money, and, roundaboutly, when the term Make America Great Again is bandied during the Reagan campaign. Luckily, there is no need to worry about Trump looking to this movie for inspiration on how to expand the already loose reins of his presidency, as he would never have the attention span or open mind to sit through it. Just as most viewers probably will not unless they’re already fond of maligning the absurd mongoloid reign of Bush II and his dad’s cronies. Or they simply want to see Patrick Bateman in a U.S. government role.
When the real credits conclude with West Side Story‘s beloved and increasingly satirical, “America,” played against the background of images of a fishing reel, tackle affixed, we must admit that McKay is in top form in terms of showcasing just how much rage and pasquinade go hand in hand. Except, in this case (and so many others pertaining to politics), it sadly isn’t really a spoof.
