A necessary evil?

Vice (2018)

Violence has always been justified to attain specific agendas. Naturam Godse justified the assassination of Gandhi by invoking the Gita. He substantiated his claim by highlighting Krishna's teachings to the cold-feet warrior in Arjuna to basically carry out the duties that he was born to the world. Unfortunately, not everybody knows the reason for their existence. Some births seem so wasted that one often wonders whether it was Nature's accident.

The Universe has had a lousy track record. Violence and destruction have been the mainstay, periodically jostling creations to another jumpstart.

Just like how a white lie is not considered wrong, violence for a bigger narrative seems totally justified. In the Crusade Wars, brutal killings of brothers defended as a necessary evil to uphold a divine decree. In the name of race and religion, Man continues to ponder and kill, making excuses as they go.

This Oscar-nominated film tells about the life and times of Dick Cheney who was the Vice President during George W Bush's tenure as the President of the USA. In any other country, this movie would have been viewed as being anti-nationalist, portraying the country as an evil Empire run by greedy men who cared a damn about their own people, what more other countries or environment. Even though traditionally the Vice President is powerless, GW Bush got into politics because of his father and leadership was never his strong point. This reformed alcoholic was a lame-duck President. Dick Cheney was the de facto President of the USA who pulled the strings of the administration and was the puppet master who turned the world upside down. 

Christian Bale in the lead role.
From Batman to Fat Old Man

Endorsing the unitary executive theory where the President controls all the power of the Executive branch of the country, he is seen to have 'created' the turmoil that the world is in today. Starting in life as a Yale dropout with alcohol problems, he morphed with the help of his sweetheart and wife, Lynne, from being a linesman to get into the White House. He had gone in and out of the White House from the time of Nixon's administration. First working under the eccentric Donald Rumsfeld,  he endured repeated heart attacks and finally went into the private sector. He later became the running partner for GW Bush and had purportedly benefitted from the many fake or faulty intelligence that surfaced as justifications to walk into sovereign countries in the name of fighting terrorism.

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A divine duty?

W. (2008)

George W. Bush had the unenviable record of being the US President with the lowest rating ever, at the end of his second term. His tenure marked the making the world a hostile world to live in and the unleashing of the genie of destruction from the Middle East.

Somehow I could not help but compare W as a President to Truman. Truman was not the first choice for Vice President but was chosen over the left leaning pacifist Henry Wallace. W was made President after a controversial election. When FDR died four months into his VPship, Truman was left asking himself, whether he was man enough to be the President? Like Truman, W had a disturbing past. Harry Truman grew up as a recluse and a nerd for being small, book-wormish and with thick glasses. Because of this complex, probably, Truman turned out to be a 'gung-ho' leader who threatened the whole world, especially the Soviet Union, with his new found toy, the Nuclear Bombs. W had always grown under the shadow of his brother Jeb and had always wanted to do something to win his father George Senior's heart. The Presidentship must have been W's way to prove that he won the sibling rivalry.

Both Truman and W left the world, after their leadership in a chaotic state. Truman with the Cold War and the world of Red Army versus the capitalists and W with his crusade against the unknown enemies to nuke them out of their foxholes as well dividing the world into two simplistic halves, with the US and against them.

This film starts showing a reckless George W Bush just wasting his time getting drunk, involving himself in failed ventures and living a life of disappointment to his father, George Sr. At the age of  40, he finds faith in God, gets his life in order, becomes a teetotaler and gets a heading in life. After becoming Governor of Texas, he gets the delusion that he is the God-appointed representative to lead the world's biggest Christian nation.

At the end of the day, the film did not reveal anything that most of us did not already know. Well, this film did not explore anything that we all did not know. All through, we noticed that W and his father never really saw eye to eye in many of the ways of ruling the nation and controlling the affairs of the world. Just like Truman, W also ended his tenure with the lowest rating ever in the history of USA.