Newton’s gorgeous looks nearly did torpedo her chances for W. “I was not an advocate at first for Thandie. When Oliver Stone suggested the idea, I said, ‘What? This is the girl you hire because she’s hot, not for a major character.’ Becoming Condi Rice is a massive undertaking, but Thandie made a total transformation,Thandie came onto the set and surprised all of us,” --- W star Josh Brolin
Check under the hood for the W review
Finding substance in George W. Bush where there seemed to be only thin air, and confident that what's past is prologue, Oliver Stone's "W." is not the hatchet job some may have expected (or hoped for). It is instead a measured and thoughtful meditation on a leader who, this terrific movie believes, inadvertently made the world as roiling as his soul.
His conscience, of course, is another matter. But Stone, screenwriter Stanley Weiser and especially Josh Brolin, in the title role, somehow reach even that uncleared brush inside the 43rd President. Brolin's performance is nuanced yet piercing, going beyond the empty proclamations and idiotic malaprops to finally find a there there.
The film opens with the Oval Office preparations for the 2002 State of the Union address, in which the phrase "Axis of Evil" is to be introduced. Assembled is Bush's cabal - er, cabinet - of advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss), Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn), National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (Thandie Newton) and presidential brain-holder Karl Rove (Toby Young).
More of this review by Joe Neumaier at DAILY NEWS MOVIES