I feel better about myself when my president doesn't know stuff that I don't know. That's the American dream: even a moron, as my ex-wife says I am, could become President.

It is such an even-handed depiction of it's subject that I almost wish for the old Oliver Stone. The one who would bring his own complicated agenda to the story the way he did in "JFK" or "Nixon." One critic said he felt Stone was reigning himself in, holding back. I tend to agree. There are places when the movie begins to play like a good "Saturday Night Live" sketch or something from "The Daily Show."

It's based on the truth, but it's lined up in such a way that it is very funny. Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice is funny all the way through. She has made a choice to use a voice that, as my son, Julius, said midway through the film, "cracks me up." But, just when there is that glimpse of life, of a solid point of view, it draws away and focuses on Richard Dreyfus as Dick Cheney, or "Vice," as the frat boy fool calls him, or on Karl Rove lurking in the dark corner of some room, and it becomes a serious-minded biopic posing as a docudrama.

The film has no pace and achieves very little rhythm. Josh Brolin is being celebrated for a wonderful performance and I see a good impersonation, but that doesn't make a performance. He doesn't connect with anyone; there is no chemistry, nothing heats up. All the actors seem to be acting in a vacuum surrounded only by themselves and our foreknowledge of their characters from the news. Only James Cromwell, as the first President Bush, is not doing an impersonation, seemingly making no attempt to sound like or to look like H.W. Ellen Burstyn, as Barbara Bush, brings a little passion to the part, and was revelatory to me at least about the woman's character.

The promotion of the film makes it seem as though it is going to be funny. It is in moments, but it can't sustain an honest emotion long enough to make a whole scene.

The stories abound about how Stone hurried to get the picture done so that it could be out before the election. One would presume that he felt he could influence the election. It is certainly within the realm of Stone's ego to think that he could push the vote one way or the other. Judging from his history, I would have thought he wanted to push it away from the Republican Party, but based on the film he has made, I think he must have enjoyed those Texas barbeques and he may miss the last eight years. I won't.