The timing is all wrong for this Cheney biopic, Vice

Adam McKay's biopic about the life and times of Dick Cheney, Vice (2018), comes at us as almost a parody of the conventions of documentary cinema and with a huge warning flag: So much of Cheney's life has taken place in the darkness, there's so little known about what he said or might have said in various moments of crisis in his life and in our world (most notably 9/11, when he took charge in the White House w/ W on the road), so many of his meetings were private and secretive, that McKay and his team acknowledge they're going to just fill in the blanks as they see fit. Sometimes, that works well, as they have some lighthearted fun w/ a documentary about an subject who remains obscure and hidden: playing out one scene as if Cheney (Christian Bale) and his wife, Lyn (Amy Adams) - both of them giving great performances - speak to each other in Elizabethan English (So embarrassed that I don't know if they were actually quoting Shakespeare - Richard II maybe? - or talking in pastiche), a funny moment when the credits role halfway thru the movie, and other jaunts. All to the good - but there are major problems with this movie that kept me from enjoying it or even in fact making it to the end (2 1/4 hrs!). First, the timing is horrible. Do any of us really have room in our hearts or minds to hate Dick Cheney or any other public figure at this time when our hatred and fear is well focused on you know whom? The movie feels quaint and unneeded. Second, OK, though I'm sure I agree w/ McKay and all  of his political beliefs, the film relentlessly pushes us to loathe and despise Cheney entourage. Clearly, less is more: The facts alone, in a straightforward documentary, would be enough, and I don't need or want to be manipulated by spliced in footage, ludicrous characterization, and heavy-handed moralism In the end, therefore, the movie is kind of a bore and an unnecessary one at that: Cheney was a fright and a danger, but times have changed and the movie feels about as relevant as a take-down of the Buchanan administration.