OLIVER Stone has cultivated a reputation as the bruiser of modern cinema.

He highlighted the moral complexities of Vietnam (Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July, Heaven & Earth), savaged his fellow Americans's relentless pursuit of wealth (Wall Street), satirised the glamorisation of violence (Natural Born Killers) and remembered one of the United States's darkest days (World Trade Center).

Stone has focused in part on the influence of the political establishment with memorable portraits of John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

Now, as George W Bush prepares to bid farewell to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the film-maker offers his most intriguing feature yet.

W sketches his rise to power from the mid-1960s to the present day, beginning at Yale where the young George (Brolin) endures the humiliation of the fraternity house initiation.

He vociferously rejects one frat member's suggestion that he follow in his father's footsteps - "Hell no!" - and channels his efforts instead into boozing, invariably ending up drunk in jail.

His despairing father George Sr (Cromwell) pulls strings to keep his son's name out of the papers. However, George continues to disappoint until he meets his wife Laura (Banks) and unexpectedly gains his first foothold on the ladder of success as Governor of his home state of Texas.