Hitman Brand Hauser (John Cusack) is dispatched to the war-torn country of Turaqistan--which is being rebuilt by Tamerlane, an American corporation--to assassinate the nation’s oil minister. Working under the guise of a tradeshow producer, Hauser is also charged with mounting a wedding for pop star Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff), and he must contend with muckraking left-wing reporter Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei), who has come to Turaqistan to blow the lid on Tamerlane’s true intentions.

CRITIQUE

This movie is a mess. It’s muddled, shrill, self-righteous, and--worst of all--unfunny. Forget comparisons to Dr. Strangelove or Wag the Dog (or even Lord of War or the first half hour of Iron Man), War, Inc. has more in common with such ‘80s misfires as Deal of the Century and Best Defense. And much like those movies, almost no one will remember this movie six months from now.

War, Inc. suffers from two fatal flaws (in addition to the whole being unfunny bit). First off, it’s coming at the tail end of the period in American history it wants to satirize. As I type this, we’ve only two months and change left in the Bush-Cheney era. Regardless of who is elected president, things aren’t going to remain exactly the same (and even if they do, most people won’t notice).

Add to that the fact that it’s been almost six years since W. parachuted onto that aircraft character, meaning we’ve already been inundated with more than half a decade of satirical jabs at the situation in Iraq, Halliburton contracts, and good ol’ boy politics. Any movie that waltzes in at this point in time definitely has its work cut out for it.

Unfortunately for Cusack (who coproduced the movie and co-wrote the script with Bullworth screenwriter Jeremy Pikser and novelist Mark Leyner) and director Joshua Seftel (who’s more at home directing documentaries and so-called reality television), they have absolutely nothing new to say.

Every point this movie wants to make has already been made (many were repeatedly made during the Gulf War--eighteen years ago), most often ad nauseum. War is big business? Well, duh. You mean if the Middle East’s primary export were bananas and not oil, nobody in the West would give a damn what happened in the region? Gee, never heard that one before.

As if that weren’t enough, the movie’s Cheney analog (played by Dan Aykroyd) is a gruff-talking, constipated-looking old coot, while the Bush stand-in (played by Ben Kingsley) is a gun-toting rube with a stereotypical hillbilly accent. Groundbreaking! Unlike Dr. Strangelove, which was both timely and timeless (not to mention often frighteningly prescient), War, Inc. is so Johnny-come-lately it ends up being dead on arrival.

The movie’s other major undoing is its lack of focus. It’s never sure exactly what it wants to satirize. The war-as-capitalism slant would be enough for any movie (even a good one), but War, Inc. cannot be content with just one target, so we get the Duff plotline. I suppose this is meant to be an attack on the culture of celebrity, and a scathing exposé on how ridiculous nonsense such as the personal lives of vapid pop stars distracts us from what’s truly important in the world, but I’m not really sure.

Unfortunately, this aspect of the movie is so murky and ill-defined I have no idea what the point is supposed to be. A scene in which Yonica tearfully bemoans the way the world views her is so schmaltzy I started to wonder if perhaps I’d mistakenly received a copy of one of Duff’s old Disney Channel movies, and I won’t even go into the ridiculous third-act twist involving the character, which appears to have been pulled out of someone’s rectum shortly before the scene was shot.

Then there’s Tomei’s character (who isn’t so much as character as she is the filmmakers’ mouthpiece), whose arc I suppose is meant to illustrate how members of the media get hoodwinked into reporting what a political administration wants reported (a notion handled to immeasurably greater effect in Wag the Dog).

That’s all well and good I suppose, but it would work better if the movie didn’t chuck this notion somewhere along the way and use the character’s improbable naïveté as an excuse to shoehorn in a couple of action set pieces (one of which contains a gag that recalls a similar moment from True Lies, which I no doubt believe would drive Cusack and Seftel absolutely insane were they to be clued in).

Look at the names of the characters played by Duff and Tomei and you’ll get an idea of what passes for wit here. You know a movie’s desperate when it starts dragging out the old funny names bit (Strangelove being one of the few notable exceptions), and War, Inc. doesn’t stop with those two. You also get a couple of guys named Ooq-Yu-Fay and Ooq-Mi-Fay (wasn’t that already more or less used in the last Austin Powers movie?). And the name of the man Cusack is sent to kill? Omar Shariff. **Sigh.**                

In an attempt at filling theaters so shameless even William Castle would have found it unconscionable, War, Inc. was sold as a semi-sequel to Grosse Point Blank, the Cusack-starring/George Armitage-directed hitman flick of 1997. Don’t be fooled. Despite the hitman connection, despite the presence of Aykroyd, and despite another turn by Joan Cusack as John’s secretary/right arm, the connection between the movies is even shakier than that between Jaws and Jaws 3-D. These are completely different characters, and the stories don’t even appear to be set in the same fictional universe. Drawing a line--a very tenuous line--between the two was simply the studio’s way of trying to cash in on moviegoers’ memories of another, infinitely better movie.

Much like the recent An American Carol, albeit completely on the other end of the political spectrum, War, Inc. is geared toward a specific audience, an audience comprised of people who will take to the movie simply because it espouses a socio-political viewpoint with which they agree. Nevertheless, one can only hope even a few of these people will recognize the movie for the smug, didactic, pretentious, heavy-handed debacle it is.

THE VIDEO

The 2.35:1/1080p transfer is almost as muddled as the movie itself. Colors are uneven, contrast is inconsistent, and blacks are often crushed to chalky grays or dark blue (Cusack’s black suit jacket consistently wavers between the two from shot to shot). Many scenes are marred by softness, which saps the image of detail and flattens depth. All in all, this looks more like a poorly upconverted standard-def transfer than it does a high-def presentation.

THE AUDIO

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio isn’t as disappointing as the video, but it’s still only a slightly above average track, although this is due in large part to the uninspired sound design. Dialogue sounds okay, and there is some surprisingly deep bass action, but there’s a lack of refinement and punch in the mix that prevents the track from truly succeeding; this is most noticeable in the effects, which call attention to themselves with their lifelessness. English DTS 5.1 and Dolby Stereo tracks are also included. English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

No extras are included, and this is one of those instances in which I’m extremely grateful.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Remember that old Broadway adage about satire being what closes on Saturday night? Well, War, Inc. is the sort of cinematic satire that leaves movie houses empty on Saturday night.