W.

Neither the cathartic satire nor the excoriating expose it might have been, Oliver Stone’s film delivers a low-key but fairly honorable attempt to understand what makes Georgie Boy tick. Maybe it should have been a little wilder, but except for a fantasy sequence that is repeated long after we get what little point it has, the film comes across as a fairly straightforward docudrama with elements of sly humor. The big draw is seeing familiar faces impersonating other familiar faces, and they’re all spot on, from Josh Brolin as Bush and Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney on down--wait, isn’t that Rob Corddry as Ari Fleischer?! Jeffrey Wright channels Colin Powell as we hope he was, and Thandie Newton does a wicked caricature of Condi Rice. James Cornwell and Ellen Burstyn are uncanny as the not-so-proud parents, George and Barbara. And suddenly-ubiquitous local gal Elizabeth Banks does a creditable Laura Bush. You’ll spot a bunch more (like Toby Jones, aka Capote, as the ineffable “Turdblossom/Boy Genius” Karl Rove), but Richard as (you-don’t-know-) Dick is the key, making an implausible figure plausible, and his sit-room argument for invading Iraq is speculative and Strangelovian but rings true, as Powell asks “What’s our exit strategy? How do we get out?” and the little Napoleon answers chillingly, “We don’t. We stay.” I could have done with more scenes like that and fewer detailing the familiar tales of Dubya failing upward from fratboy to President, with the not-news flash that 43 was obsessed with earning the respect of and then surpassing 41, his aloof, patrician Poppy. Still, if you’re willing to spend any more time with--say it with me now!--The Worst President Ever, then you could do worse than watching W. (2008, dvd, n.) *7-* (MC-56.)