Trailer for Dick Cheney biopic 'Vice' released

LOS ANGELES: Christian Bale’s drastic transformation into Dick Cheney takes center stage in the first trailer for 'Vice', directed by Adam McKay, released on Wednesday.

For film, Christian Bale had to gain 40lbs (as well as a bald cap) to play the part of George W Bush’s  vice-president. The film charts Cheney’s rise through the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George HW Bush, before apparently brokering a deal with Bush Jr to heighten the powers of the VP.

"I am a CEO of a large company, and I have been secretary of defense, and I have been White House chief of staff. The vice presidency is a mostly symbolic job," Bale’s Cheney says when George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) asks him to be his right-hand man. “However, if we came to a different understanding." By the end of the clip, Cheney concedes. “I believe we can make this work.”

The biopic, directed by “The Big Short’s” Adam McKay, chronicles Cheney’s life as the former vice president under President George W. Bush. Starting with his beginnings as a Washington bureaucrat, the film explores Cheney’s service under the Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush administrations and as the CEO of energy management company Halliburton.

In a tweet, McKay described the film as “a snapshot into Dick Cheney’s wild, quiet and shadowy power”.

The film is due in US cinemas on Christmas Day and in the UK on 1 February.