With numerous Academy nods under its belt (Best Picture, Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing, Makeup & Hair) Vice has already secured a bucket load of critical acclaim, but remove the top three inches of prosthetics from Adam McKay’s newest venture, and what are we left with?
Vice chronicles the political life and times of former Vice President of America, Dick Cheney. Beginning with a down and out Cheney during a drink-driving arrest, leading to a stern ultimatum from his wife Lynne (Amy Adams) to either get his act together or expect divorce. This, in McKay’s version of events, is the catalyst that projects Dick Cheney into his quest for ultimate power. Weaving its way through cherry picked moments of importance, Vice is always bobbing and weaving with a sporadic edit of audiovisual firecrackers, but never quite lands the meaningful blow. It’s the punch unseen that provides a knockout, and frustratingly, the witty hash of cinematic gimmicks feels predictable. Engaging, but predictable.
Vice seems to be a victim of its directors previous success, the refreshing meta / satire / 4th wall breaking confidence of The Big Short is now entirely expected, and while the economic jargon busting sections of the latter hit us right when we felt they were needed, I can’t help but feel that with the former, they’re used more as devices to maintain viewer interest in what is a crushingly dark tale of corruption and greed. Vice suffers from an ongoing identity crisis between supervillain origin story, and mockumentary biopic; it lacks the sincerity to choose one or the other.
As a standalone cinematic experience, Vice does hold up well. It is a visceral, dynamic piece of work with unsurprisingly rock solid performances from the whole cast (see Academy accolades) even if the shoe-horning in of the ever charismatic Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld did feel a little misplaced. Christian Bale famously thanked Satan for the inspiration for the role during his Golden Globes acceptance speech, and it is this demonic edge that Bale brings to the role that ominously permeates throughout. His portrayal of Cheney never falls into parody, which it undoubtedly would in less capable hands. The prosthetic work does a huge amount of heavy lifting, and is almost flawless enough to go under the radar throughout.
Greig Fraser (Lion, Foxcatcher, Zero Dark Thirty) seems to have gone unnoticed this awards season, which may in part be due to the heavy shadow cast by both Adam McKay’s Direction and Hank Corwin’s edit. In the select few moments of Vice when the edit simmers down though, Fraser’s cinematography begins to creep, silent and confident, to the fore. Ironically, Fraser feels like the real Dick Cheney here, a craftsman, wielding huge amounts of power from within the shadows. Blink and you will miss his fingerprints amidst this flashbang grenade of a picture.
As with its predecessor, Vice is undoubtedly an Adam McKay satire vehicle fit for our time: From the “This is a true story… kind of…. We f*cking tried OK?” intro card, to the faux credit roll half way through, to the meta-on-meta mid credits scene where a fictional focus group from within the narrative, break the fourth wall, only to then pick a fight with each other when an avid Trump supporter criticises “libtard hollywood.”
It’s always been a serious responsibility of artists to tackle difficult, overlooked or hidden subjects, and deconstruct them in new and unique ways. Unique voices should always be encouraged. However, when we start listening to a voice solely because it is unique, and not because it actually has anything of worth to say, well, you get the 2016 Presidential Election. You get Boris Johnson or Katie Hopkins. You get, Vice. As much as it pains me to draw the comparison here, it feels frustratingly apt.