Sometimes good intentions and an excess of smarts aren't enough. It's true in politics and it's true in movies.
Case in point John Cusack's War, Inc. It's ambitious, occassionally brilliant but mostly a mess. How I wish it were otherwise. This country needs a good political satire. Unfortunately this one ain't it.
Read on, MacDuff!
War, Inc
C+
Comedy is hard. Satire is hell. Since Dr. Strangelove filmmakers have been desperately trying to match the high-water mark of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece with mixed results. Recent misfires like American Dreamz, Lord Of War and Richard Kelly's Southland Tales are so woefully tone-deaf and lacking in consistency that you have to wonder whether Hollywood has completely lost its ability to spoof world affairs. Maybe it's that California itself has become a living example of satire with its action-hero governor. Is it a coincidence that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report –the best examples of the form-- are produced in New York? You have to go back a decade or more to find decent political lampoons like Wag The Dog, Bulworth and Bob Roberts. And while all three are fine efforts, even they feel dated when compared to the timelessness of the much older Dr. Strangelove.
The genre minefield actor/writer John Cusack has waded into is littered with tragic missteps and though War, Inc., doesn't come home in a body bag, it does arrive in theaters badly crippled by a lack of focus and mistimed comedy.
Cusack plays Hauser, an ex-CIA assassin working freelance for Tamerlane Industries, the first private security firm (think Halliburton meets Blackwater) hired by the U.S. government to simultaneously wage war and organize reconstruction in oil-rich Turaqistan. Hauser's mission is to whack Turaqi head-of-state Omar Sharif (not the actor), because of his plans to construct a national pipeline. Arriving in the devastated country's green zone, he's provided with an outlandish cover: as the producer for Tamerlane's splashy trade show, where he must organize the media-event wedding of Turaqi pop star Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff). There, amidst the chaos of corporatized warfare and local insurgency, he meets a beautiful left wing journalist (Marisa Tomei) and begins to question the morality of what he does for a living.
If it sounds like a convoluted, over-reaching follow-up to Grosse Point Blank you're pretty much on target. While there's no literal connection between the two movies, Cusack once again plays a troubled and cynical hit man in a black suit who charms with his fast-talking patter but can unleash unholy violence when he wants to. And, of course, he once again has a tough-talking assistant played by his real-life sister Joan Cusack (who hideously strains for laughs this time around).
Though he's aiming for bigger targets, by invoking the earlier film, Cusack makes clear how much War, Inc. pales in comparison. Grosse Point Blank was an engaging and tightly focused black comedy, cleverly contrasting its idyllic suburban high school reunion against the violence of professional murder. War Inc., on the other hand, is a chaotic, sprawling mess that attempts to parody young sexualized pop stars while delivering an outraged attack on war profiteering and Bush administration policies. And while Cusack's morose sense of humor almost succeeds in pulling everything together, his ambitions have gotten the better of him.
Working with a different team of writers this time --Jeremy Pikser (Bulworth) and postmodernist meta-novelist Mark Leyner (Et Tu, Babe)— Cusack has a lot of funny ideas that never cohere into a funny movie. For instance an ongoing bit involving Hauser's confessional relationship with an OnStar operator (voiced by Montel Williams) is more amusing in theory than execution.
Part of War, Inc.'s problem is that documentarian newcomer Joshua Seftel, for all his fish-eyed-lens shots, doesn't have the directorial confidence that George Armitage (Miami Blues) brought to Grosse Point Blank. His pacing is off, he doesn't know how to underline a joke and he often loses track of the narrative.
The bigger issue, however, is that Cusack's story is simply too unwieldy. While there's no doubting the writers' passion and indignation, but their frenzied punk rock approach to parody creates far more noise than impact. The best satire plays with a poker face, never betraying the scorn it feels for its subject. Cusack and company, unfortunately, wear their disdain on their sleeve. This undermines the film of its satirical punch.
Nevertheless, there are enough viciously observed jokes buried beneath War, Inc's numerous explosions and messy storytelling to simply write it off. A bit involving amputee "Rockettes" dancing on prosthetic legs made from the same Tamerlane technology that was used to blow off their limbs in the first place is particularly inspired, as is the line: "Another breathtaking example of how American know-how alleviates the suffering it creates."
Moments like these make one wonder how much the movie might have been embraced by Bush administration critics if it had been released in the early fist-pumping years of the War On Terror rather than now, when 70% of the country is disgustedly counting down the days until our disgraced Commander In Chief finally leaves office.