Like most politicians, “Vice” overpromises and underdelivers in a filibusteringly long film.

The screenplay writer of Academy Award-winning “The Big Short,” Adam McKay, returns with a semi-comedic biopic about the life of former Vice President Dick Cheney. The movie tracks similarly to “The Big Short” with a narrator, in this case a war veteran, frequent flashbacks, non sequiturs, and comedic innuendo. But unlike “The Big Short” where the cut-scene explainers served a narrative purpose like dissecting complex banking practices and the contributing factors to the financial crisis, the techniques used are meant to mislead and malign.