DVD REVIEW

War, Inc.

First Look Pictures || R || Oct 14, 2008

Synopsis

War, Inc. is a political satire set in Turaqistan, a country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former U.S. Vice President (Dan Aykroyd).  In an effort to monopolize the opportunities the war-torn nation offers, the corporation’s CEO hires Hauser (John Cusack) to kill a Middle Eastern oil minister.  Struggling with his own demons, the assassin must pose as the corporation’s Trade Show Producer in order to pull off this latest hit while maintaining his cover by organizing the high-profile wedding of Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff), an outrageous Central Asian pop star, and keeping a sexy left wing reporter (Marisa Tomei) in check.


Critique

There’s a great book that should be read by everyone: The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, the author of No Logo, another great book.  This isn’t a book report, but the book covers, in exhausting detail, the logistics and particulars of disaster capitalism, the practice of exploiting natural and mad-made disasters for big profits.  Examples include Iraq, the land grabs in post-Katrina New Orleans and post-tsunami Asia, South American economic experiments, among others.  It might sound dry, but it’s not.

John Cusack read the book, obviously, as War, Inc. seems based on everything Klein talks about.  She probably should have gotten credit on the film.  This is not a complaint; great material (usually) makes for great cinema, and War, Inc. is no exception.  If anything, Cusack’s obvious engagement with the material only helps the film.

Cusack/War, Inc. does a brilliant job of casting disaster capitalism/Iraq War/Brittany Spears as a modern day Old West.  The opening sequence is the most obvious example of this: Hauser, a lone gunman, strolls into a saloon in a windswept Canadian town, the arctic tundra standing in for dusty western streets, snow drifts replacing the tumbling tumbleweeds.  He guns down four men as easily and as casually as he would brush his teeth, then rides off, not on a horse but in his own jet, headed for the next town.

Like Eastwood’s gunfighter in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, Hauser follows the money, guided by his benefactors at Tamerlane, a Halliburton-esque corporation run by the Vice President of the United States.  Tamerlane has slapped its brand on just about everything; the war in Turaqistan might as well be a jamboree.  Hauser drives around in his Humvee as though there weren’t a war going on, and there might as well not be.  All those explosions are just the doors of economic opportunity bursting open.

Oh yeah, Turaqistan.  That’s the oil-rich Middle Eastern country Hauser lands in on his latest Tamerlane mission.  Turaqistan is a lawless country, and as if the Old West motif wasn’t obvious enough, Hauser’s liaison is a woman named Marsha Dillon (get it?).  I don’t want to make it seem like this is all laid on too thick; it’s just right.

Turaqistan will look familiar to anyone who has watched the news in the last, oh, five-and-a-half years.  There is a “safe zone” referred to as Emerald City, and there is even a Popeye’s Chicken, which serves not only as the local fast food shack, but also as the cover for the underground bunker where Hauser receives his mission directives.  The absurdity of a Popeye’s chicken is not lost on the film, and we should probably assume that the more outrageous the film’s claims, the more roote4d in reality they probably are.

Hauser’s mission in Turaqistan is to assassinate Omar Sharif, a Middle Eastern figurehead who stands in the way of Tamerlane’s blow-it-up-to-build-it-up business plan.  Hauser’s cover is that of a tradeshow coordinator, which is brilliant because it allows Hauser to meet everyone, and it gives the film a great (and biting) running gag in which Hauser hands a Tamerlane gift bag to everyone who leaves his office, regardless of what has just transpired; Tamerlane will overlook just about anything as long as the name gets out there.

Underneath all the absurdity and biting commentary is the uncomfortable fact that there is actually a war going on, a fact most people in the film seem to have overlooked.  Hauser can’t be bothered with the bombings happening right outside his office window.  (Hauser even gets into a small semantic debate with Natalie (Tomei) when she suggests that an “attack” has just occurred; he corrects her, saying that what just happened was, in fact, a bombing, something quite different from an attack.)  The war is really just one big visual aid the tradeshow can use to facilitate business.  The horrors of war have been turned into cheesy disposable pop songs” “I want to blow you … up.”

Except that war isn’t just about money; it’s life and death, a fact driven home to Hauser when he steers the Humvee outside the gates of Emerald City and into the desolate barrens of Fallaf.  Fallaf sounds like “fall off” if you ran the words together really fast, and that’s basically what it is: if you were to fall of the edge of the Earth and into a pit of agnoy and hell, that would probably be about what life in Fallaf is like.  It also sounds like someone combines the names Falluja and Najaf, which works because, hey, if you need an example of the worst effects of the Iraq War, how can you narrow it down to just one?

What Hauser sees in Fallaf is a war crime, but it is also something that we’ve seen in a million westerns, not the least of which the Leone opera that most influenced the film.  When the helicopter gunship swoops in and mows down a group of civilians, it’s reminiscent of too many news stories, but also of the moment in A Fistful of Dollars when Ramon Rojo guns down the entire army detachment with Gatling gun.  It has finally become impossible to distinguish between life and art.

The Fallaf incident is a wake up call for Hauser, a moment of clarity, and it leads to his final (hilarious) confrontation with Walken (Ben “Sir Kingsley!” Kingsley).  As Walken says, “Operation Chickenhawk never ends,” and the final shot of the film punctuates that in what is probably the blackest joke of the whole film.

We can’t talk about War, Inc. without talking about the pop sensation that is Yonica Babyyeah, the over sexualized Central Asian sensation.  I’m sure somewhere in the vast Moviefreak archives there is a mention of the time I actually met Hilary Duff, and trust me: whatever you think of her, whatever pictures you’ve seen, this girl is about a million times hotter in person.  Photographs truly don’t do her justice.  I didn’t really think much of her until I actually saw her in person.  Words fail me, but the girl has an actual aura, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen on another human being.  Who knew she could act too.

Yonica Babyyeah’s presence in the film is, one awkward plot contrivance aside, the single longest running, most biting joke in the film.  Yonica is a Brittany Spears clone, obviously, and with a war going on right outside, with all that human tragedy and destruction, it is Yonica who gets most of the attention, particularly from Hauser, who is tasked with making sure her wedding goes off without a hitch.  She is there whether Hauser likes it or not, and he probably spends more time on her than he does on Omar Sharif.

The biggest complaint with War, Inc. is that the dialogue sounds at times like someone reciting from a book.  Cusack (and his fellow writers) obviously have a point they’re trying to make, and they obviously wanted to cover as much of Klein’s material as they could, and some of these efforts are defter than others.  These moments are awkward but not terrible, and this is a small quibble with an otherwise great film.


Video

War, Inc. is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio.  The transfer is sharp.  There are many dark scenes and dark, cool colors in the film’s palate, and the whole palate is expertly rendered.  The black levels are solid and the overall picture is crisp.


Audio

This disc is presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround.  The presentation is balanced and sharply rendered.  The channels are clear and well balanced.  Everything from the dialogue to the explosions and gunfire is translated nicely.


Special Features

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Final Thoughts

War, Inc. is a biting film with more truth about the current geopolitical climate than you’re likely to find just about anywhere.  It’s nice to see an actual Cusack film (as opposed to a film with Cusack in it); it seems like it has been a while.

VERDICT: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

 

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Review posted on Oct 20, 2008 | Share this article | Top of Page

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