Stone delivers surprise in Bush movie W.

Oliver Stone thinks George W. Bush was unqualified to be president. However, the filmmaker found him an irresistible figure for drama.

After months of speculation over whether Stone's film biography would be a hatchet job on Bush. W. arrives as a surprisingly empathetic, though hardly sympathetic, portrait of the president.

Stone, the historical revisionist behind the presidential sagas "JFK" and "Nixon," this time plays the provocateur by not doing what's expected of him, namely, putting Bush on a pillory.