VICE

Director: Adam McKay

132, R

Screenwriter: Adam McKay

Cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Jesse Plemons, Alison Pill, Lily Rabe, Tyler Perry, Justin Kirk, LisaGay Hamilton, Shea Whigham and Eddie Marsan.

 

Absolutely the film with the best ensemble acting line-up this year, Vice is as scary as it is hilarious. Christian Bale, who famously thanked Satan for his inspiration playing the polarizing VP, barely hides his drive for power and brutality under a bland corporate exterior. Amy Adams is picture perfect as his wife Lynne, willing to give up her gay daughter (Allison Pill) to the right-wing wolves. But it is Steve Carell who quietly steals the show as a spacily unhinged Rumsfeld, joining forces with Cheney to find ways to unleash war in Iraq, and trash the “niceties” of the Geneva Convention.

“McKay’s flame-throwing take on Dick Cheney, played by a shockingly brilliant Christian Bale, is ready to indict the past in the name of our scarily uncertain future.” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.