Director Adam McKay's Vice is set to tell the story of how Dick Cheney transformed from being the CEO of Halliburton Co. into being George W. Bush's pick for vice president of the United States. However, the film doesn't follow the biopic structure perfectly. McKay affirmed some situations depicted in the comedy-drama weren't 100 percent accurate.
"We really did our best to present these people as people," McKay, 50, told USA Today in an interview published Monday. "We really did our best to be accurate with the historic timeline."
To prepare for Vice, McKay read books that pertained to Cheney. He also worked with a journalist to verify the film's script. "We really think it's an incredible story that, regardless of your political leanings, is about power and family and America. Does that mean that some fringe [media outlets] won't go after the movie? Of course not," McKay added.
Taking McKay's comments into consideration, how much of Vice is true to Cheney's life and experiences? The film appears to nail the transformations of Bale into Cheney, Sam Rockwell in Bush, Amy Adams into Lynne Cheney and Steve Carell into Donald Rumsfeld. However, some critics have noted how Vice lacks in its portrayal if history.
Slate reported how McKay's "grasp of Washington politics is thin." Yet, the publication also suggested McKay's Vice "does get several things right."
McKay, in speaking with USA Today, also claimed Cheney had said a lot of the lines uttered by Bale in Vice. In the film's final portion, the director confirmed how the lines in Bale's monologue to the camera included "all quotes taken from Cheney."
"The way we approach it, and the way these great actors approach it, was we attempted to go into the movie just showing who they are, and what they did," McKay told Yahoo Entertainment. "And if you look at what's shown in the movie, there's nothing that's really debatable. We went to war in Iraq, Cheney lead that charge, Lynne was a very powerful force in Dick's life."
Vice, a film that's received six Golden Globes nods, hits theaters Tuesday.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Dory Jackson is a New York-based entertainment journalist from Maryland. She graduated from Randolph-Macon College—in May 2016—with a focus in Communication ... Read more
