The supporting cast includes Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Scott Glenn, and Richard Dreyfuss.

During the hazing, Bush successfully recalls the names and nicknames of many of the fraternity members, and states that his family's political legacy is one in which he has no interest.

Bush fares poorly in the debate and loses the election, but nevertheless receives the highest number of votes for a Republican candidate in the state's history.

Bush becomes a front office executive of the Texas Rangers baseball team, while his father oversees the victory of the Gulf War.

Although Allied forces liberate Kuwait within 100 hours of their ground invasion, the elder Bush decides not to invade Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein.

Powell is generally overruled by Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who insist that the war would secure the United States' status as sole global superpower while spreading democracy throughout the Middle East.

It's like Frank Capra territory on one hand, but I'll also cover the demons in his private life, his bouts with his dad and his conversion to Christianity, which explains a lot of where he is coming from.

Weiser and Stone read 17 books as part of their research for the script,[9] and worked on the project for a year before venturing to film Pinkville.

[4] W. was financed independently for Stone, with Hong Kong, German, and Australian funds: he tried to approach American studios for money, but got turned down.

"[8] He described the structure of W. as a three-act film starting with Bush as a young man "with a missed life", followed by his transformation and "an assertion of will which was amazingly powerful" as he came out from his father's shadow, and finally his invasion of Iraq.

[2] W.'s producers reportedly ran television spots for the film opposite Republican Party presidential nominee John McCain's ads in the fall of 2008.

[17] In his review, Roger Ebert wrote that it was "fascinating" and praised all the actors, noting that Richard Dreyfuss was "not so much a double as an embodiment" of Dick Cheney.

[18] In contrast, Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post called the film "a rushed, wildly uneven, tonally jumbled caricature.

[21] Slate magazine's Timothy Noah, however, noted that "most [of] the film's more ludicrous details" are actually directly taken from non-fiction sources, and argued that the film was too kind to Bush in omitting certain reported events, including an allegation that Bush mocked murderer Karla Faye Tucker, a woman executed during his tenure as governor of Texas.

[22] In a March 2010 "Screen Test" interview with The New York Times' Lynne Hirschberg, Josh Brolin claims Bush did in fact watch the film.