Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
George W. Bush picks Dick Cheney, the CEO of Halliburton Co., to be his Republican running mate in the 2000 presidential election. No stranger to politics, Cheney's impressive résumé includes stints as White House chief of staff, House Minority Whip and Defense Secretary. When Bush wins by a narrow margin, Cheney begins to use his newfound power to help reshape the country and the world.
Vice is anchored by Christian Bale's extraordinary physical and behavioral transformation as Dick Cheney, earning its well-deserved acting acclaim. Adam McKay's satirical, fourth-wall-breaking style carries over from The Big Short but feels more strained here — the non-linear storytelling and cheeky formal tricks work inconsistently across a two-hour runtime. The plot covers sprawling political terrain competently but struggles to find a coherent dramatic throughline beyond a character study that never fully penetrates its subject. The ending, with its direct-address audience confrontation, feels preachy and anticlimactic rather than illuminating. Cinematography is polished but unremarkable. Novelty is moderate — McKay's gonzo political biography approach was fresher in The Big Short; here it feels like a reprisal of an established formula rather than a genuine reinvention.