Customer Reviews

War, Inc.

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

I almost skipped this one as a political annoyance until I saw the star power supporting it: Ben Kingsley, Marisa Tomei (a personal favorite), John Cusack, Joan Cusack, and more. That cast simply won't let a movie be bad. They couldn't if they tried.

Despite an apparent attempt to be ordinary entertainment, this one rises above all the usual categories. Do you want a cynical mockumentary of Haliburton-style war profiteering? Got it. Do you want pointed jabs at operations funded by Congress's "black budget?" Check. Do you want satirical assaults on simplistic sloganeering from every possible direction? It's there. Add in a babe like a pre-meltdown Britney but with hotter hotpants and a bucket of slapstick, and you're headed in the right direction. For example, a major character's name is "Uckmee Fay." Speakers of pig-Latin, please take note.

They set the tone from the very first scene. Chevy Chase delivers a "Mission Impossible" style of assignment to a high-class assassin, via video, while seated on American Standard's finest. Later, Joan Cusack shows up in the role that she has perfected - the prim, cheery, and murderous psychopath. There's a lot more, too. I laughed all through, even (maybe especially) when I knew that outrage would have been the "appropriate" response.

This one really grows on me the more I think about it. It doesn't whap you upside the head with humor, politics, or even its sappy moments. Instead, it tickles you with not-quite-too-much of social commentary, current events, goofy jokes, visual gags, and enough more to hold it all together. I liked it more a few hours later than when I walked out the door, and lots of movies have the opposite effect on me.

-- wiredweird, reviewing the theatrical release

PS: See it some time soon. The topical humor in this one might age badly unless the The Powers That Be keep providing background to preserve its freshness.

I've seen this when released and I would disagree with many of the reviewers who complain of the "disjointed" script. This movie is not confusing. It is extremely fast paced and can be watched several times to get all the jokes. The special effects are brutally effective and the underlying message very disturbing. The dark humor is right on, especially the bit where the Cusack's only friend is his Northstar roadside assistance system. The only complaint of the movie is how they fit Hillary Duff into the movie. It's a bit corny, but hey, it's Hollywood.

War Inc has an all star cast that includes John Cusack as Hauser a troubled assassin who has accepted a job of bumping off the figure head of a rival nation. To do this he must pose as a trade show coordinator hosting a Tamerlane Brand USA Expo in recently "liberated" country Turaqistan. On top of all this and with the help of his assistant (Joan Cusack) he has to juggle a headstrong reporter (Marisa Tomei) and the impending wedding of pop superstar Yonika BabyYea (Hilary Duff). War Inc is a film that will entertain a number of different audiences. On the surface the film plays much like a guy with girl troubles film but its the underlying theme that really makes it shine. Writers Mark Leyner, Jeremy Pikser and John Cusack weave a story that draws many parallels between what is happening on screen and in America today. One could easily view these larger than life characters as allegorical representations of the American Public, Capitalism, Big Business, Government, The Media...and so on. There is of course a good bit of the absurd, including but not limited to: fighting, licking and hotsauce drinking. Overall this film is ahead of its time for its candid statements about the geo political climate and its fun enough that you can still eat popcorn too. I hope you enjoy!

I loved it. Take John Cusack, add 1 part Brazil and pour over Starship Troopers, and you've got a hilariously bizaare commentary on geopolitics and the industrial war machine.

Its dark, and I mean, almost navy. Its only downfall is its heaviness, and sometimes it and the metaphors are jammed down your throat a little too often, but the ensemble cast is actually phenomenal, with Ben Kingsley and even Hillary Duff doing a great job (I can't believe I typed that).

You will laugh, if you have a dark sense of humor and like smart comedy. This movie is very timely, with the rise of the military farming out their work to private security (who are portrayed to be the craziest of all the crazies in the movie). Its small wonder it tanked in the box office, but if you have a proclivity towards movies like Dr. Strangelove, you'll find this to be one of the better movies you watched this year.

I came upon this movie by accident while I was visiting friends in Colorado (because, naturally, such a film won't be shown in ultra-conservative Georgia). I immediately fell in love with the dark humor and political satire as my favorite actor battled against his conscience, his bosses, and his hot sauce addiction. This movie is a fun watch for all, but particularly relevant to those of us who oppose the war. John Cusack hits it out of the park by finally saying what everyone's been too afraid to say. "War, Inc." is a MUST SEE!

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

As a fan of Cusack's since Gross Pointe Blank, I am glad to see him back as a kick-butting hit man. This time he's taken his comedic touch up a notch in my opinion, plus the message is so pertinent, that you just can't go wrong. Like most American's I too thought the war was a necessary move but due to mismanagement and bad leadership it has turned into an utter failure. Cusack uses this political satire to show audiences how we are exploiting the middle east and profiteering from this illegal war. A classic Cusack performance spliced wit hard-hitting political satire make this movie truly provocative, a controversial masterpiece.

"War, Inc." does indeed follow in the steps of "Grosse Pointe Blank," but it is quite different.

The satire here is broader and at the same time more focused. In "Gross Pointe," the targets were Gen-X anomie and individual angst.

Here the targets are political and social: pre-emptive war, the privatization of everything, the selling of everything (happiness, sex, youth, glamor, death), corporatization, the emptiness of celebrity-culture.

This movie doesn't have the energy and snap of "Grosse Pointe." Cusack is jowly and tired. But "War, Inc." makes a virtue of that very tiredness by making Hauser/Cusack's disenchantment more believable.

There are lots of nice touches.

Ben Kingsley is amazing as the Southern-fried CIA psychopath. (Kingsley tries to strike it rich with a Roman Empire Themepark, complete with His and Hers Vomitoriums. It fails in the Real Estate collapse, but the parallel between decadent Rome and equally-decadent U.S.A. is clear.)

Ackroyd does a brief, crude, but spot-on slam at Cheney.

Joan Cusack has turned into a zoned-out control-freak corporate harpy, perfect for the role.

Marisa Tomei is mostly OK as the crusading, frustrated reporter. (She does have a little trouble keeping a straight face.)

But--amazing!--best of all is Hillary Duff.

Duff is superb. Who knew she could act? She does. She acts circles around everyone, even Kingsley. She is at her best--even more amazing!--not when playing the vamped-out teen slut but when playing the tormented, lost waif.

Outsourcing wars, killing people that want to kill you, using charity as cover, and teaching yourself how hot sauce can become a tool of the trade are all things that the movie brings to the table. It is a sppof and has a spoof feel, and some of the movie really is funny. Conversations held with your navigation device to discuss your problems is a good example of that, because some of the things that it says are truly funny material. Other things also rear their heads and get good laughs as well, and the first half of the movie would have been a five-star beast if it would have kept up its pace. It didn't do that, though, and instead became convoluted and a bit on the boring side. By the end of the movie I was just ready for the thing to end, and i really didn't expect that. I say that because of the main person involved is someone i like, and he had his hands in the project fromt he beginning. Still, it does have some moments in it and they are really good moments, so I didn't find myself totally hating the movie.

One of the things I did dislike was the way Hilary Duff's character was portrayed. This isn't meant as a knock on her acting skills, but is instead meant to address the issues of the character itself. She goes from an accented star to a person with hidden feelings that sounds like Duff, and that didn't play out well. Neither did the forced love connection that enters the fray, or the overall connection between the past and the present. Looking at the scenes that some of this happens in makes me think that they should have been funny and, if executed properly, they would have been great. They were not played out well, however, and the mixture of many things makes the over-the-top violene seem like it wants to be something like Shoot-em-up but without all the wonderful little things that made that movie funny.

One pro in the movie was the acting of John C., however, but I expected that. I liked what he did with his character and i liked the subtle things that came out when he interacted with other people. I even bought into his killer instincts when they were displayed, and how they made him look like a man that was an artist when it came to killing. As I said before, i simply could not find my footing in the storyline and it diminished the character's capacity to make me laugh, ruining some rather good moments. If John C. was less talented at taking roles and bending them to his will, i would have found the movie even less desirable than I did.

Some people do like this movie a lot and i respect that, too. I want people to know that as well, thinking they should perhaps read why they thought the movie was a good one and measure those pros and cons. As i pointed out in my review, I liked the start of this beast and I thought that it had quite a few moments that really took the proverbial cake. I just couldn't eat a whole slice because it seemed undercooked and, as everyone knows, uncooing things can poison even the most healthy of persons.
Not my cup of tea - or hot sauce, if you prefer.

At the time of this review, the BD at 10.49 is substantially lower than the DVD price. Bargain hunters take note. The picture quality and audio quality is passable for a BD, but definitely better than dvd quality. It is also widescreen.

The Arctic town scene makes it look like a serious spy movie was going to erupt. The comedic music should have alerted me.

This BD should be kept away from the hands of children as their heroine Hillary Duff is spouting profanity continuously and staying in sexy poses. The antithesis of Lizzie McGuire. Hillary Duff walks a fine line between mocking a culture and mocking a religion. No fatwas have been issued against Duff, so we are good. Hillary Duff sings a few ditties in this movie.

Jeffrey Donovan and Gabrielle Anwar (Burn Notice TV series) would have made a better job of deadpan comedy. Physical slap-stick comedy is not necessary for this sort of satire.

My American friends find this movie difficult to swallow, because they see in this movie their tax dollars wasted in Turaquistan, which has all the letters of I-R-A-Q in it.

The rest of the world might find this satire spot on and cutting too close to the bone. Whatever your political views are, this BD is worth the price.