The World According to Dick Cheney

Cutler’s documentary The World According to Dick Cheney is a rousing piece of work.

Not a lot new here, but Cheney gets a fair hearing--even though a tougher one is occasionally warranted.

The details of Cheney's fall from grace in the waning years of the Bush administration are fascinating and narratively satisfying.

Here Cheney sounds like he's still campaigning for viewers' votes as he defends the decision to go to war against Iraq, declines to admit that waterboarding is a form of torture, and only struggles for an answer when he is asked to name his main faults.

The World According to Dick Cheney has some chilling moments, from his dispassionate description of waterboarding ("It creates a sensation of drowning") to his 9/11 narrative, in which he takes responsibility for having authorized the shooting down of Flight 93 if it approached Washington. What it doesn't have is a lot of navel-gazing.

The documentary doesn’t fawn over its subject. War skeptics get plenty of time to explain why they think Cheney was wrong.... Conversely, when the filmmakers make an effort to humanize Cheney, he doesn’t give them much to work with.

The World According to Dick Cheney has interesting insights and revealing moments, but for critics who long to confront Mr. Cheney it may prove dissatisfying, because it allows him to make astonishing assertions without direct contradiction or follow-up questions.

The strength of the documentary is that although it is grounded in an extensive interview with its subject, it is not hagiography. Writers like Woodward and Gellman weigh in with considered and not always flattering opinions about Cheney. That said, noticeable by their absence as interview subjects in the film are Rice and, in particular, Bush.

The World According to Dick Cheney instead is nuts-and-bolts bland and overly deferential.

There is no sense of who Cheney is, beyond his restatements.