Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Alison Pill, Jesse Plemons, Bill Pullman, Lily Rabe, Stefania LaVie Owen, Adam Bartley, LisaGay Hamilton, Tyler Perry, Shea Whigham, Kirk Bovill, Jillian Armenante, Bill Camp, Justin Kirk, Eddie Marsan
OUR RATING: ★★★½
Story:
Bio-dramedy written and directed by Adam McKay. The story centers on Dick Cheney (Christian Bale), the most powerful Vice President in history, and how his policies changed the world as we know it. The story explores how a bureaucratic Washington insider quietly became the most powerful man in the world as Vice-President to George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell), reshaping the country and the globe in ways that we still feel today.
Our Favorite Quotes:
'Beware the quiet man. For while others speak, he watches. And while others act, he plans. And when they finally rest... he strikes.' - ANONYMOUS (Vice) Share on X 'If you have power, people will always try to take it from you. Always.' Lynne Cheney (Vice) Share on X
Best Quotes (Total Quotes: 18)
[referring to Cheney and other White House officials and staff responding to the 9/11 attacks]
Kurt: [voice over] By all accounts of what people saw in that room on that terrible day, there was confusion, fear, uncertainty, but Dick Cheney saw something else that no one else did, he saw an opportunity. As the world becomes more and more confusing, we tend to focus on the things that are right there in front of us, while ignoring the massive forces that actually change and shape our lives. With people working longer and longer hours, for less and less, when we do have free time, the last thing we want is complicated analysis of our government, lobbying, international trade agreements, and tax bills. So it’s no surprise that when a monotone bureaucratic Vice President came to power, we hardly noticed as he achieved a position of authority that very few leaders in the history of America ever have, forever changing the course of history for millions and millions of lives. And he did it like a ghost, with most people having no idea who he is, or where he came from. How does a man go on to become who he is?
[after a young Cheney is stopped by a traffic cop for driving while intoxicated]
Lynne Cheney: Two times. Two times I have to drag you out of that jail like a filthy hobo!
Dick Cheney: I’m sorry, Lynne.
Lynne Cheney: What? What did you just say?
Dick Cheney: I’m sorry, Lynnie.
Lynne Cheney: You’re sorry? Don’t call me Lynnie! You’re sorry. One time is “I’m sorry”. Two times makes me think that I picked the wrong man. You already got your ass thrown out of Yale for drinking and fighting, and now you’re just going to be a lush that hangs powerlines for the state. Are you going to live in a trailer
and we’re going to have ten kids? Is that plan?
Dick Cheney: Let’s discuss this later, please.
Lynne Cheney: No, we’re going to discuss this right now while you smell like vomit and cheap booze.
Edna Vincent: Does Dick want some coffee?
Lynne Cheney: What? Mom, get out! Get out! “Does Dick want some coffee?” Jesus Christ!
[her mom leaves]
Lynne Cheney: Okay, here’s my plan. Right. Either you stand up straight, and you get your back straight, and you have the courage to become someone, or I’m gone. I know a dozen guys and a few professors at school who would date me.
Dick Cheney: I love you, Lynne.
Lynne Cheney: Then prove it! Prove it! I can’t go to a big Ivy League school, and I can’t run a company, or be mayor. That’s just the way the world is for a girl. I need you. And right now you are a big fat pissed soaked
ze-ro!
Lynne Cheney: I’ve seen my mom waiting up all night for my father to get home, and I’ve seen my father drunk in this house and raising his voice, and way worse, and I am not dancing that dance anymore. I’m not!
[we see flashback of Lynne’s father shouting at her mom]
Lynne Cheney: I’m not. So, can you change? Can you change, or am I wasting my goddamn time?
Dick Cheney: I won’t ever disappoint you again, Lynne.
[written quote on the screen]
“Beware the quiet man. For while others speak, he watches. And while others act, he plans. And when they finally rest… he strikes.” – ANONYMOUS
[as he’s watching Nixon give his speech on TV]
Dick Cheney: Nixon forgot about the voice activated recorders. He got sloppy.
Young Liz Cheney: Is the President being punished?
Lynne Cheney: No, no. The President has lot of enemies.
[Cheney makes call]
Dick Cheney: Brussels, please..
Lynne Cheney: You need to remember, Lizzy, that if you have power, people will always try to take it from you. Always.
Young Liz Cheney: Yes, ma’am.
Lynne Cheney: Remember that.
[as they are walking, suddenly Cheney drops to his knees and falls to the ground]
Scooter Libby: Can you breathe?
Dick Cheney: I’m having a heart attack, you idiot.
[referring to Cheney]
Kurt: [voice over] How many steps ahead was he looking? How did he feel about the opportunity that was in front of him? There are certain moments, so delicate, like a teacup and saucer, stacked on a teacup and saucer, on a teacup and saucer. And on and on. That this moment could fall in any direction and change everything. Sadly, there is no real way to know exactly what was going on inside the Cheneys at this history changing moment. We can’t just snap into a Shakespearean Soliloquy that dramatizes every feeling and motivation. That’s just not the way the world works.
[we see Cheney and Lynne speaking Shakespearean]
Lynne Cheney: My sweet Richard. Dance’d nimbly round the King’s hearth thou hath. Even whilst clamored I for more, more! Parched maw craned towards the drip, drip of imagined waters. But I say to you now, rest, retire. Thou hast honored thy vows to wife and crown.
Dick Cheney: Has blindness usurped vision in you, my wife? No mere treaty is our union. Thou shared thy torch’s flame with mine revealing halls and spires of long faded empires. And now I may hold aloft mine own fiery credit to make flesh our bond of power.
Lynne Cheney: Dare I? Dare I let hope’s peak place gathered bramble upon my heart for future’s nest? Many winters past hath I let this hope die, cruel winds silencing tiny birds needy cries. Now that it hath arrived I say yea, yea!
Dick Cheney: Yea.
Lynne Cheney: Mine own blood and will are yours, til pierced be the last soldier’s breast plate, spilling forth its ruby jellied treasures!
George W. Bush: So, we going to do this thing or what? I mean, is this happening?
Dick Cheney: No. I have found some very interesting candidates. If we could schedule a three hour window to go through …
George W. Bush: No, I meant you. I want you to be my VP. You’re the solution to my problem.
Dick Cheney: No. I’m a CEO of a large company. I have been Secretary of Defense. I have been the Chief of Staff. Uh, the Vice Presidency is mostly a, um, a symbolic job.
George W. Bush: Right, right. I can see how that wouldn’t be, uh, enticing to you.
Dick Cheney: However, the Vice Presidency is also defined by the President, and if we were to come to a, uh, different understanding…
George W. Bush: Uh-huh. Go on. I’m listening.
Dick Cheney: I sense that, uh, you’re a kinetic leader. You make decisions based on instinct.
George W. Bush: I am. People have said that.
Dick Cheney: Yeah, yeah. Very different, very different from, uh, from your father in that regard. Now, maybe I can handle some of the more mundane jobs, overseeing bureaucracy, managing military, uh, energy, uh, foreign policy.
[they look at each other for a moment]
George W. Bush: That sounds good.
George W. Bush: There won’t be the kind of team owner that pulls the starter in the fourth inning.
Dick Cheney: Hm.
George W. Bush: That’s the manager’s job.
Dick Cheney: One more thing. My daughter Mary…
George W. Bush: Right. Rove told me she likes girls.
Dick Cheney: Now, I know you have to run against gay marriage in the south, mid-west, and it is my daughter, and that line is drawn concrete.
George W. Bush: Don’t you say another word. So long as you don’t mind us pushing that messaging, we’re okay with you sitting that one out. I think it’s important for all the, all the Marys in the world, you know? No problemo. We got a deal?
Dick Cheney: Then I believe this can work.
George W. Bush: [chuckles] Hot damn!
Donald Rumsfeld: What about Bush’s friends? Ridge, Pataki, Thompson? I haven’t heard their names.
Dick Cheney: No, they were not offered jobs in this administration at this time.
Donald Rumsfeld: “Not offered jobs at this time?” Are you even more ruthless than you used to be there, Dick? You’re just not getting laid.
[we see Kurt at his home watching the news as he narrates to us]
Kurt: So with one of the biggest media and political machines ever created behind him Cheney was able to squash action on Global Warming, cut taxes for the super rich, and got regulations for massive corporations.
Kurt: [voice over] So while Powell, the CIA and their international coalition toppled the Taliban and took Afghanistan in a matter of weeks, Cheney found something much more powerful, than missiles, or jet planes.
Dick Cheney: [to Bush] You are the president. War is yours. Not the UN, not some coalition. Do not share powers that are yours alone.
[we see Kurt jogging as he’s narrating to us]
Kurt: So, Dick Cheney told his family that he was ready to die, and that he wasn’t afraid. He told them he had lived a full life. And he had zero regrets…
[suddenly he is hit by a car and killed, then we see his heart being transplanted into Cheney]
[we see Kurt, lying on a morgue slab as he narrates to us]
Kurt: They say my heart could give him another ten years. Cheney doesn’t like to refer to it as someone else’s heart. He likes to refer to it as his new heart. Which, even though I’m dead, I have to say, it still makes me feel pretty shitty. And so, when Liz decided to run for one of Wyoming’s two senate seats against Republican incumbent Mike Enzi, our Dick was right there to hopefully see the Cheney legacy of power continue.
[last lines; before credits]
Reporter: Two-thirds of Americans say the Iraq war is not worth fighting, and their looking at the value gained versus the cost of American lives, and Iraqi lives.
Dick Cheney: So?
Reporter: So, don’t you care what the American People think?
Dick Cheney: No. I think you cannot be blown off course.
[Cheney looks into the camera, breaking the fourth-wall]
Dick Cheney: I can feel your recriminations and your judgment, and I am fine with that. You want to be loved, go be a movie star. The world is as you find it. You got to deal with that reality, and there are monsters in this world. We saw three thousand innocent people burned to death by those monsters. And yet, you object, when I refuse to kiss those monsters on the cheek and say, “Pretty please.” You answer me this, what terrorist attack would you have let go forward so you wouldn’t seem like a mean and nasty fella? I will not apologize for keeping your families safe. And I will not apologize for doing what needed to be done so that your loved ones can sleep peacefully at night. It has been my honor to be your servant. You chose me, and I did what you asked.
Total Quotes: 18
What do you think of Vice quotes? Let us know what you think in the comments below as we’d love to know.
Trailer:
Hey – I thought I heard Cheney say something about promoting climate change/global warming as a distraction to the American people from something that was lessening the administration’s popularity. Do you know what I am talking about or did I get it completely wrong?
This article states there are 17 quotes. There is another one I am looking for but don’t see listed. Could you list the rest please? This movie is very interesting and enlightening…I may go to see it again to catch more of what was said…some of it moved pretty fast…and it was hard to keep up with everything.
Does someone remember the anonymous quote about when others talk he listens, while others act he watched and while others rested he strikes, or something like that. I loved it and want to learn it exactly the way it is.
This is the quote you’re looking for: “Beware the quiet man. For while others speak, he watches. And while others act, he plans. And when they finally rest… he strikes.”
What of Vice? Well, first off Christian Bale is amazing. If this guy doesn’t win best actor for his portrayal- the world will have lost its meaning (dramatic, I know). Second, Amy Adams is equally amazing. I don’t know who the real life Lynn Cheney was but Amy Adams’ portrayal brings real sense to the real Dick Cheney story because she fills in that weird void as to why a guy with zero personality would have any success in Washington. Bravo! Lastly, there’s art to this movie. It’s not a movie designed to slam the right, though I know many republicans will probably feel this way watching this movie. No- this movie slams Washington. It’s a movie that tells us we’re not all that special, Americans are people and like any other people group in this often confusing world, the people we elect have problems. Dick Cheney was one big walking mess. But this is really emphasized well because of the tone this movie strikes. This movie tells us that Washington is about insiders and climbing the ladder. Period. Forget nobility and championing American ideals. No. Washington is about winning and gathering in or consolidating power. And in this respect, this movie is brilliant. It blows the lid off of what all Washington insiders do not want the general public to know. And what is it they don’t won’t us knowing? Play the game just right and anyone – regardless how mediocre they are- can make the top, can grab hold of this power.
Rating: 5/5
What about the Shakespeare quotes in Vice ? Anthony
We have now added the Shakespearean quotes to the post, check above on the page. Thanks.