Vice

Adam McKay's latest film works as a hybrid between biopic and documentary-as-political-essay - it does have all the famous-actors-playing-famous people covering the narrative highpoints of Dick Cheney's career, but also has a cynical voice-over narration from Jesse Plemons (as a character whose involvement in the wider storyline isn't revealed until quite late) and is very fond of subjective and highly edited montage to make wider points. It's a very distinct style that I've not seen before, and what it loses, perhaps, in personal involvement in the characters (I don't think Christian Bale has a single "big oscar scene" in the entire film - Amy Adams is probably the only castmember who does), it gains in being focused entirely on making its point about what's being going on behind the scenes in US politics over the last half century. And it's a fascinating, if slightly terrifying, look at how we got to where we are  (and I'm always interested in films that attempt to show a wider sense of how big political movements are put together - that wonkish kinda how-the-sausage-is-made approach always makes me interested).

Of course in a day and age when it appears, we're all too aware of how badly offcourse political power has gone, but seem to not be able to come together to work out any solutions to how to get anything back, the question could be asked "how useful is all this information". And the answer is probably going to vary around different audience members. But for those who want a download of recent political history told with cynicism and verve, this definitely gets the job done.