War, Inc.

WAR, INC. tries very hard to be a film of consequence - as though no one in this country has a clue of just how absurdly grotesque our military/corporate presence affects the countries we attack to help. The position is taken that corporate greed and manifold insanity is (surprise!) capable of taking over demolished countries and changing them into profitable adventures. That may be funny to some, but it has been written about and filmed and satirized so often that it is really yesterday's lunch.

Joshua Seftel directs this mélange with a semi-spacey, overly active pyrotechnics team and relies on a script by the oh-so-obvious committee quality pasted together by producer/writer/actor John Cusack and Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser. Despite all the noise and kitschy bleeps in taste the cast manages to keep our attention merely because they are as good as they are as actors: John Cusack with his ever-present drink of Tabasco sauce, Joan Cusack playing Joan Cusack very well, Marisa Tomei as probably the most convincing character despite the script, Dan Aykroyd as a stand in for Dick Cheney, and Hilary Duff in a surprisingly good potty-mouthed central role.

The jokes are old, the situation is not novel, the précis is sad - and if that makes for entertainment for you, then have at it. For this viewer it is one of the poorest scripts to be filmed in a long time. Grady Harp, October 08

I have a confession to make: John Cusack is one of my all-time favorite actors.

Okay. Now you know my bias. Proceed at your own risk.

John's latest movie -- the much-hyped, limited-release, and all-but-banned -- War, Inc. is tremendous.

But not for the reason you think.

I bought the movie the minute it was released. I purposely avoided reading reviews of it (except for skimming its rating and a few sentences about it on Rotten Tomatoes) because I wanted to see it for myself. All I knew going into it was that it was supposed to be (a) a comedy, and (b) a thinly veiled, left-wing satire that skewers 21st century American warmongers.

I knew the cast included John, his sister Joan, Marisa Tomei, Hilary Duff, Dan Aykroyd, and Ben Kinglsey -- a dream cast if I've ever seen one. I knew John played a hit man with conflicted emotions, a growing conscience that affected his performance. I knew Joan (another of my favorite actors) played his hit-scheduler. Together, John and Joan were (more or less) reprising their roles in another favorite movie of mine: Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), about a hit man who attends his high-school reunion.

That was it.

Well, almost it. I knew from reading the dozens of rabid fans on his MySpace page that War, Inc. was An Important Movie, a Stick-It-To-The-Republicans film that would surely expose the Bush administration for the turd-pile that it is.

I watched it tonight. Apart from the hype, laying aside its flaws (more about that in a minute), forgetting its supposed anti-Bush bias, War, Inc., is a very good movie that offers far more than meets the eye.

Here's the story:

Brand Hauser (John Cusack) is sent to the fictional country of Turaqistan to kill Omar Sharif, a Middle Eastern oil minister, by the ex-Vice President (Aykroyd) who is now head honcho for a conglomerate called Tamerlane (read: Halliburton). Hauser's cover is to pose as a Tamerlane trade-show producer. On the plane to Turaqistan, Mr. Vice President says to him, "This is a historic moment, Hauser. The first war ever to be 100 percent outsourced to private enterprise. Tamerlane jets. Tamerlane tanks. Tamerlane soldiers." Marsha Dillion (Joan) constantly urges Hauser to focus his time and energy on Omar so that they can get the hell out of the country, mission accomplished.

That's the premise of the movie. Ostensibly. There's more to this movie than that. So if that's all you expect from War, Inc., you're sure to be disappointed.

When Hauser arrives in Turaqistan, he's dumbstruck by the advertisements plastered everywhere. Even a tank rolls by sporting ads from Popeye's, Golden Palace Casino, and FT Financial Times on its side. Turiqistan is one big product placement, all funded by Halib -- I mean, Tamerlane.

Hauser meets and falls for a hot "left-wing" reporter named Natalie Hegalhuzen (Tomei). He also meets a Britney Spears-like sleazy pop star named Yonica Babyyeah (Duff) who tries to seduce him.

The rest of the movie is, essentially, Hauser pursuing Natalie, avoiding Yonica, and tracking Omar. There's a backstory that slowly teases its way into the open about 3/4 of the way through the movie. It seems Walken (Kingsley), a high ranking member of the CIA -- who recruited Hauser to be a hit man for an op code-named "Operation Chickenhawk" -- plays a more sinister role...revealed at the end to be even worse than revealed in the backstory.

A few key/interesting scenes:

1. The Implanted Journalist Experience -- in which journalists are implanted with a chip, given goggles and ear buds and seated in a Disney-like thrill ride as they watch movies of the war. "We are now able to reduce the risk of journalist mortality to virtually zero. The Combat O' Rama implantation device will allow you to experience full-spectrum sensory reality...thanks and enjoy your ride." Surreal.

2. While Hauser sits in his Humvee putting Omar in his cross hairs, a hopped-up tank full of American soldiers careens around a corner, shooting at everything in sight. One soldier approaches the Humvee carrying his dry cleaning. The solider eats a packet of dried coffee grounds, beats his head against the Humvee and acts like he's drunk on the sheer joy of killing. (I'll get back to this in a minute.)

3. Natalie dancing with Omar. Marisa is a hottie and I enjoy watching her move.

4. Yonica putting a live scorpion in her pants, then asking one of her handlers to reach in and get it while Hauser watches in disbelief. Yonica is also a hottie, albeit a sluttier-than-thou one. I enjoy watching her move, too.

5. Hauser walking in on Yonica in her hotel room as she's singing a pretty song while strumming an acoustic guitar. If this movie had metaphorical overtones, this scene would be chief among them. It is the meeting of two people who are hollow inside, both struggling to come to grips with the worlds they've created for themselves. Whereas some would say this scene slows the pace of the movie, I say this scene is the movie. (I'll get back to this in a minute.)

6. A line uttered by Hauser to Walken, the CIA man (Kingsley): "Whoever momentarily interrupts the accumulation of wealth we pulverize. I'm just not feeling good about that any more, Sir."

7. Natalie, Yonica, and Hauser sipping wine (Yonica hates wine and requested milk) in an abandoned mansion. They get to talking, and ask Hauser if he's ever been married. This is where Hauser reveals his backstory: "I came home one night and my beautiful wife had been slaughtered." Plus, his daughter is taken, without a ransom note. So, in one fell swoop Hauser loses his entire family. It's enough to drive anyone to be a hit man. (More about that in a moment.)

8. Hauser and Natalie running for their lives through a No-Go zone, hugging corners of bombed-out buildings, dashing in and around abandoned cars, diving for cover behind piles of dirt. Suddenly, a chopper appears in the night, hovers over the building, and sets machine guns blazing -- on the crowd of unarmed civilians emerging from the darkness. (I'll get back to this in a minute.)

9. Kinglsey's character telling Hauser: "War is the improvement of investment climates by other means...The USA is a subdivision of Tamerlane. Democracy, the war on terror, the war on drugs: these are all focus-group slogans for Tamerlane." Again, this is supposed to be part of the movie's foundational premise. Tamerlane/Halliburton starts wars, then supplies wars with products to conduct the war, and even the products afterwards with which to rebuild the countries it destroys.

After a surprise I didn't see coming, the movie ends with everyone getting his/her due. Roll credits. And that's that.

Or is it? Let me see if I can explain what I think War, Inc., is really about.

First, this isn't the blatant anti-war movie everyone -- including its creator John Cusack -- would like you to believe. Scenes of advertisement-torn Turaqistan, the ubiquitousness of Tamerlane, and the mercenary-like ex Vice President are few and far between. They, perhaps, comprise 35% of the movie. Maybe less. Sure, the movie is set in Turaqistan. Bombs and gun fire are heard occasionally. And you never forget that Tamerlane surrounds you.

But I think War, Inc., is a movie about emptiness and what people do to fill it. Consider:

* Hauser is empty, emotionless. He's a hit man.
* Yonica is empty, emotionless. She's a slut posing as a pop star.
* The ex Vice President is empty, heartless. He's a sociopath mercenary.
* The soldiers are empty, without conscience. They kill at will, anyone and anything.
* The people of Turaqistan are empty, without a country. They're surrounded by death on one side, and Popeye's on the other.
* Marsha is empty, a fellow mercenary, killing for business.
* Tamerlane is empty, a soulless company that lives for capitalism at all cost.
* I would even argue that Natalie, the "left-wing" journalist, is empty, too. She relies on causes to give her life meaning.

War, Inc., therefore, is not an anti-war movie. It is also not really a comedy, although it is billed as such. There are a couple of laughs in the movie. But, mostly, it's a movie about people struggling to find meaning in an insane world -- either the world of their own making, or the world thrust upon them.

I realized that when I watched the scene of Hauser and Yonica in the hotel room. It was a touching scene, one that -- if you're watching for it -- revealed the movie's core.

If you view War, Inc., as a rollicking good kick in the pants of Republicans, if you think it's a blistering satire about modern-day war making, you'll be disappointed. Or, even if you like it, you'll miss the movie's deeper meaning.

War, Inc., is a metaphor for life lived without meaning and to what lengths people go to fill the void. Seen through that prism, War, Inc. becomes a movie that serves as a warning to all of us -- Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, rich, poor, black, white, male, female...whatever. Meaningless is meaningless. It can happen to all of us. Any one of us fights to keep from falling into the emptiness. At any moment we could be Yonica. Or Hauser. Or the head of a Halliburton-like conglomerate that feeds the war machine -- and reaps profit from it. This movie has less to do with Republicans than it does with people who ceased being human. And I know many from both parties who fall in to that category.

The last thing I'll say about War, Inc., is that the scenes of rampaging American soldiers were ham-fisted, which is to say inaccurate and unnecessary to the plot. They were a slap in the face of the thousands of men and women who serve with honor and dignity, who sincerely believe they're helping the Iraqi people. Those scenes in War, Inc. dishonor them and threaten to reduce the movie to left-wing propaganda.

Which is a shame. For War, Inc., is a very well made, multi-layered movie about the human condition that just so happens to be a thinly veiled jab at Halliburton and our propensity to make a buck where no buck should be made.

Those two messages combined -- the emptiness of life and what people do to fill the void, plus the repulsive, highly questionable act of privatizing war -- pack a powerful punch. But I think one has to take both aspects into account for the movie to deliver the knockout its creators seek.

I wanted this movie to be good. As a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War who opposes our nation's militarism, I thought this caricature would be entertaining. Alas, it was not. This film failed to capture my attention and failed to provide any stimulation, intellectual or otherwise, throughout the duration.

Although I believe it is worthy of watch, it is not the cerebral satire of contemporary American policy that I thought it would be.

"War, Inc." is a good, solid John Cusack movie, but that's about it. It's not as funny or as political as I had hoped. Most of the funniest bits are in the trailer. The storyline is predictable but the writing is good.

The performances are fine, and Marisa Tomei is irresistible on every level. Hillary Duff's character has a scene with a scorpion that, like Princess Leia's slave outfit in "Return of the Jedi," will haunt any hetero male's imagination for a long time.

Worth seeing.

In the best satire of the military-industrial complex since "Dr. Strangelove," John Cusack is a hit man for a Halliburton-like company in the first ever completely privatized American war. Trouble is, he's starting to have moral questions about the job. Will an inquisitive progressive journalist be able to get him back in touch with his soul?

This movie is dark, absurdist, and incredibly funny. It also covers a very important issue. Best movie I've seen all year.