Vice - Nice?
I am not sure what to make of it. It was presented as a historical film, tracking his life from college to VP within 2 hours, while also showing the historic events that shaped his career/that were shaped by him. Lots of facts and fake documentary-style footage.
But then there are these quick zooms through history, where the blatanty evil character (Rumsfeld and Cheney mostly) just say the thing they're about to do in blatantly evil terms (like, let's torture people or let's bomb civilians, interspersed with footage of them doing so). Which is fine, as an artistic choice, but obviously isn't the way it went down.
And that's my main issue with the film. You obviously know that some of it (the parts where the actors are basically inserted into existing film, like Powelll at the UN) is exactly what happened, you equally well know that some definitely didn't happen as shown. So how do you treat the rest of the movie, which falls in between - the motivations of Cheney taking the VP role? Bush promising him full control? Him getting full briefings before Bush? His wife basically pushing his whole career? The decisions he took on 9/11? Are those total speculative fiction, recorded events, or the writers' imagination bsaed on documents and interviews? Or is this uncertainty there intentionally, to show how remote and obscure the levers of US state power are?
It does make you mad at the neocons, so at least it achieves that.