You can’t say Oliver Stone ain’t got cojones. No filmmaker has ever before mounted a theatrical feature biopic of a sitting president. But, then again, perhaps no sitting president had it coming as much as the good George W.

A well-known rabble rouser, conspiracy theorizer and general lefty propoganda machine, Stone has successfully spun captivating, if conjectural, tales regarding numerous historical personages, rock stars, pornographers and, yes, presidents, among them. His audacity in casting historical context on a period of history that hasn’t quite concluded yet is at once curious, impudent and maybe a little crazy. It’s very Oliver Stone of him, really. The announcement of his intention to assay the life and times of one of our most controversial and current public figures came as a surprise if only for its immediacy, and was enough to send the righties into a preemptive fit. After the deluge of tell-all books and TV interviews, after all, there’s very little of Bush’s life that isn’t on public record already, and it could only be surmised that Stone was preparing to kick the man when his approval ratings were down.

Turns out, though, the most subversive thing about “W” is how sympathetic it is. It’s surprisingly even-handed, studiously avoiding both malice and flattery, apparently trying to change no one’s mind. It appears Stone may actually be trading conflict for understanding.

The director takes us on a leapfrog tour back and forth all the way from Bush’s party-boy nights as a straight C-student in Yale through the end of his first term as leader of the free world. Stone portrays Bush as a simple man, constantly frustrated by his own appetites and need for approval, and persistently haunted by a fairly well-earned belief that he’ll never live up to the legacy of his family and father (played here with measured grace by James Cromwell, generally filmed from low angles, giving him an ingeniously subliminal stature as a giant in the film).

Stone’s Bush begins as kind of a shiftless, shit-kicking cowboy with a 10-gallon hat that just happens to be made of oil-soaked $1,000 bills, but he’s still human—an ordinary man trying to cope with being born into extraordinary circumstances. Always with a drink in his hand and a sandwich stuffed in his mouth, he’s just never managed to learn when enough is enough. He’s driven to push whatever envelope he thinks he’s in (pledging at one point to “out-Texas Texas,” which is a pretty big envelope). Even when he’s finally traded drinking for Jesus, he’s still not satisfied just to be a good Christian, but develops a full on Moses complex, asserting that God on high speaks to him personally. We’ve all got our crosses, they say, and W’s may simply be a persistent compulsion to thrust greatness on himself, whether he’s capable of dealing with it or not. Not unlike many people, he’s ruled by his flaws even as he struggles to beat them. But other people don’t have presidents for fathers, or God whispering in their ears.

Josh Brolin (very effectively crawling out from his own father’s shadow, by the way) simply disappears into this damaged, perfectly human W. He handles the role, which could have easily have slid into a bad Saturday Night Live impression, with uncanny compassion and subtlety.

His performance is equally matched and buoyed by his supporting entourage of Machiavellian puppet masters. Richard Dreyfuss is a flawlessly crook-jawed Cheney, hanging in the background like a cocked shotgun. Thandie Newton’s  Rice annoys perfectly as a fawning, yes-kitten, clearly in love with her position at the big man’s table. Toby Jones’ Rove may be the creepiest of them all. He wears his intellect like a hidden badge, flashing it only when he has to. His modest assertion that he’s just “a fairy sprinkling magic dust” before Bush, is horrifying in its candor. Even more horrifying is Bush, clearly incapable of detecting any craft in the remark, simply nodding his approval. Repeatedly reminding them all that he’s the boss—they just smile and let him believe it—his frustrations come to a poignant head when the WMD search finally unravels, and the poor man is reduced to shouting at them in the war room, “Who’s in charge, here?” And, for the first time, he gets no answer.

Of the many real-life Bush quotes you might catch in the film, one that doesn’t appear is this: “The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.” He may be right, and this may be exactly the sentiment that raised Stone’s hackles in the first place. Be that as it may, if a more thoughtful treatment of the man ever gets made, it’ll have its work cut out trying to top  “W.” Stone’s quick-draw method may be shooting from the hip, but he’s hit the mark. In a level-headed, empathetic attempt to explain and understand the forces that have shaped our times, and W’s, Stone has taken an administration that has most of the country counting the minutes until its conclusion and made at least two hours and 10 minutes of it well worth paying attention to.