“War, Inc.” Review

Filed Under Indies, Movies, Political Films

Last year, John Cusack starred in “Grace is Gone,” an indie film about a father whose wife was recently killed in Iraq, and he can’t find a way to tell his two daughters. So he takes them on an impromptu road trip, trying to avoid the issue altogether. I thought it was a very effective and original anti-war film. Of course the movie was largely ignored, even on the art house circuit. After all the movie was about something. American audiences don’t like that. Movies that have some artistic value interrupt people’s text-messaging.

Cusack’s latest film — another anti-war piece, this time a satire called “War, Inc.” — opened in extremely limited release in New York and L.A. a few weeks ago. But this one has “legs,” as people in the know call it, and it’s quietly been finding an audience and expanding to additional cities amid all the sound and fury of the major summer releases. I finally caught it this afternoon and thought it was great.

No one plays an introspective, black-clad hitman quite like Cusack. In “War, Inc.,” we’re first introduced to his character Hauser while he’s doing a job in the Arctic Circle. When he’s not blowing people away, he drinks shots of tabasco sauce and has deep, meaningful conversations with his GPS system. These little nuances are what Cusack often brings to the table and makes them work brilliantly. At any rate, after a successful hit in the Great White North, Hauser sells his services to the ex-Veep (Dan Aykroyd playing Dick Cheney even better than Dick Cheney) and goes to the occupied country of Turaqistan, where he’s to assassinate an uncooperative oil baron.

Hauser poses as a trade show coordinator (the ongoing conflict in Turaqistan has been completely privatized), tasked with organizing the wedding of Middle Eastern songstress Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff). Left-wing journo Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei) catches his interest, real-life sister Joan Cusack plays his high-strung liaison Marsha Dillon, and Ben Kingsley with a southern drawl and Bush’s odd gesticulations appears as Hauser’s former CIA boss.

This is sort of the “Airplane!” of anti-war films. Reporters are herded into a motion simulator theme park ride instead of being allowed outside the Green Zone to experience real combat; the “Viceroy” is personified by a giant, Big Brother-style screen with shifting images of American icons from Babe Ruth to John Wayne to Pam Anderson; military vehicles are covered with corporate logos like they’re something out of NASCAR. But these touches are organic, not at all like the bonk-on-the-head gags in the witless “Scary Movie” clones. As weird as things have gotten over the past eight years or so, “War, Inc.” doesn’t feel that far removed from our own reality. And that is what makes it so tragically funny.

I’m pleased that “War, Inc.” is showing some staying power on the art house circuit. It’s angry, and it’s clever, and it’s designed to piss off all the Right[-wing] people. I think it connects better with audiences than “Grace is Gone” because it’s a comedy. Audiences would rather laugh at our bass ackwards foreign policy than be made to feel all sad and crummy. I don’t know what that says about them, but as long as the movie gets people to use that lump of tissue between their ears, the filmmakers can declare mission accomplished…and mean it.

-Brad Lohan

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