Star rating: ***
Dir: Oliver Stone
With: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, Richard Dreyfuss

In Britain a prime minister knows it's time to go when a removal van pulls up at the door. Hollywood delivers the reminder with movies like this nifty but far from knockout biopic of the 43rd president. Two days after George W Bush learned the identity of his successor, along comes Oliver Stone to remind him not to let the door hit his backside on the way out. If it's any consolation to the big initial from Texas, Stone's farewell kiss could - and should - have been more brutal.

After JFK and Nixon, W is the third president to have been Stoned. In keeping with its subject, it is the most superficial of the trinity. After the errant father (Tricky Dicky), the sainted son (Kennedy), Stone takes on the holy mess of the Bush presidency. As targets go, the pretzel-choking Mr Malaprop resembles not so much a bullseye as a barn door, and Stone has fun chalking up the famous gaffes.

Along the way he does something unexpected, and - for the director of Salvador, Platoon and other blistering rebel yells - something controversial. In looking at what made W the man he was, Stone veers close to eliciting sympathy for his subject. Close, but there are no cigars.

From 2002, as the Bush team gathers in the Oval Office to discuss where next after Afghanistan - "Axis of evil? I like the ring of that," says Dubya - Stone rewinds to the Yale years. Bush, played by Josh Brolin, is seen taking part in a drinking game in which recruits to the club must recite the names of members. While others flounder, Bush has done his homework. Stone's message: don't misunderestimate this guy.

Young George doesn't want for anything, that's his trouble. James Cromwell, on withering form as the first president Bush, pops up throughout the film to rescue "junior" from scrapes and tell him he's a waste of space. "What are you cut out for?" he asks Dubya after another job has gone by the wayside. "Chasing tail? Driving drunk? Who do you think you are, a Kennedy?" It's one of several on-the-money lines from writer Stanley Weiser, who worked with Stone on Wall Street.

Most of the foot-in-mouth incidents are here, and of course the pretzel episode. We are treated to some high quality lampooning - there's a wonderful Spinal Tap moment as Dubya leads a posse round his Crawford ranch - and some cheap shots, such as showing Bush speaking with his mouth full. Yet in all the back and forth over Iraq and Guantanamo (or Guantanamera, as Dubya has it) the event that defined the Bush presidency, 9/11, is kept in the wings. Despite heavy use of flashbacks, Stone has no room for the moment when the president, sitting in a classroom, was caught on camera frozen with shock on hearing of the attacks. Michael Moore used the incident to devastating effect in Fahrenheit 9/11, but it clearly wasn't deemed relevant to the story Stone wanted to tell.

Stone is more interested in exploring the Bush senior-junior relationshiptohighlightwhat made George tick: underachieving sonlivesinfather'sshadow, spends his life trying but failing to succeed, and when presented with the opportunity to outdo daddy by toppling Saddam, takes the chance and blows it. It's a familiar take on Bush, to which Stone adds nothing new. Are we meant to feel sorry for the poor little rich boy? In comparison, the more interesting, aspects of Bush's conversion from wastrel to presidential wannabe, his stopping drinking and finding God, are skimmed over.

That the film barrels along entertainingly is down to a superb performance by Brolin. The star of No Country for Old Men has the president off to a T, from his Beavis and Butthead snigger, to his oil-barrel-between-the-knees swagger. A lot of charm lurks there, and a mountain of anger too. Toby Jones plays Karl Rove, aka the president's brain, with his customary savvy. Stone has assembled an excellent supporting cast, with Scott Glen as a missile-short-of-a-silo Rumsfeld, Elizabeth Banks as smart cookie Laura Bush, and Richard Dreyfuss on scorching form as Cheney. Though, I could not warm to Thandie Newton's version of Condi Rice. All that furrowed brow and pained expression business was presumably meant to convey fierce intelligence.Tome,however,it looked like acid reflux.

Save a few interludes imagining George as he would love to be - a baseball star in front of a cheering crowd - Stone sticks with the facts, laying details on with a trowel. In trying to play fair, or as fair as he can, he ends up in a strange no-man's land between fact and fantasy, polemic and biopic. With afigureascontroversialasW, boldness should have been the order of the day. Just ask President-elect Obama.