Cusack:
Rome is burning

In star/producer/co-writer John Cusack’s pet project
War,
Inc., one character delivers a throwaway line that must surely
have been the pitch for the film: “This is like Strangelove in the desert.”
Indeed, one senses the ghosts of savage satires past, like Dr.
Strangelove , The
President's Analyst, Network

and Winter Kills in this topical send-up of BushCo and the post-9/11
‘murcan zeitgeist. Unfortunately, one also senses a lack of cohesion in an
initially smart script that soon loses focus and goes tumbling ass over
teakettle into broad farce, wildly firing its barbs in too many directions at
the same time.

Cusack’s character is Brand Hauser, a hot-sauce chugging
hit man with a tortured past who seems to be an amalgam of Jason Bourne, Captain
Willard and, um, Chuck Barris. He has been dispatched to “Turaqistan” (ahem), a
war-torn Middle Eastern hotspot ripe for reconstruction and corporate
exploitation. He is there to terminate the country’s Oil Minister (Lyubomir
Neikov) with extreme prejudice. The minister is a spanner in the works for the
corporate machinations of Hauser’s employer, a former Vice-President turned CEO
(Dan Ackroyd, doing a credible quacking Cheney) who now heads Tamerlane (a cross
between Halliburton and Blackwater). The prospect of spearheading the “first
completely out-sourced war” appears to make the ex-Veep harder than Chinese
arithmetic. In order to get close to his target, Hauser poses as the event
coordinator of a Tamerlane-sponsored trade fair being held in the capital city’s
“green zone”. Hauser’s front soon proves to be the tougher gig, as he juggles
the demands of three women: his fellow operative posing as his P.A. (Joan
Cusack), a tenacious lefty journalist (Marisa Tomei) and a petulant pop diva
named Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff). Hilarity ensues.

Reportedly, the
filmmakers have coyly denied that this is an unofficial sequel to Grosse
Pointe Blank, but obvious comparisons abound, particularly in just
about every scene that the Cusack siblings share; it feels at the very least to
be a nod and a wink to the roles they played in that movie. Admittedly, it is
great fun watching those two working together again, but it only serves as a
momentary distraction from the film’s uneven tone.

Director Joshua Seftel
does his best to hold it together, and manages to give the film a slick look
that belies a low budget. Cusack was inspired to tackle the project after
reading an article written by Canadian journalist/activist Naomi Klein back in
2004 (Tomei’s character is, I would assume, based on Klein). He enlisted the
help of two talented co-writers, Bulworth scripter Jeremy Pisker and satirist Mark Leyner.
However, this may be a case of “too many cooks” and could explain the
screenplay’s scattershot approach.

I don’t mind an occasional brushstroke
of symbolism in a film, but there are one too many instances in War, Inc. where it’s caked
on with a trowel. One set piece in particular, a flashback scene showing Hauser
in a violent, gladiatorial confrontation with his former boss (an even hammier
than usual Ben Kingsley) takes place in a dilapidated theme park that looks to
have been a replica of ancient Rome. It’s the end of the world as we know
it!

I think the malady here is similar to that which plagued Lions for Lambs: an overdose of intent.
Redford’s film came on too somber and preachy, even for the choir. War, Inc. swings to the opposite extreme; it’s
too manic and overeager to beat us over the head with what we already know: Iraq
is a shameful mess, Bush and his cronies have completely blurred the line
between war and commerce, and the majority of the American public is too busy
watching the sun rise and set over Britney’s thighs to really notice. I’m afraid
that War, Inc. is another case of “I
really wanted to like this, but…”

Previous posts with similar
themes:

Military
Intelligence and You

Where
in the World is Osama Bin Laden? / Harold & Kumar 2

Idiocracy

Network

Lions
for Lambs

Stop-Loss

Standard
Operating Procedure

Charlie
Wilson’s War