War
Machine ** / *****
Directed
by: David
Michôd.
Written
by: David
Michôd based on the book by Richael Hastings.
Starring:
Brad
Pitt (Gen. Glen McMahon), Anthony Hayes (Pete Duckman), John Magaro (Cory
Staggart), Anthony Michael Hall (Greg Pulver), Emory Cohen (Willy Dunne), Topher
Grace (Matt Little), Daniel Betts (Simon Ball), Aymen Hamdouchi (Badi Basim), RJ
Cyler (Andy Moon), Alan Ruck (Pat McKinnon), Nicholas Jones (Dick Waddle), Will
Poulter (Ricky Ortega), Lakeith Stanfield (Cpl. Billy Cole), Ben Kingsley (President
Karzai), Meg Tilly (Jeannie McMahon), Griffin Dunne (Ray Canucci), Josh Stewart
(Captain Dick North), Tilda Swinton (German Politician).
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The year is 2009, and Obama has
just become President. One of the things he has done is put General Glen
McMahon (Pitt) in charge of the War in Afghanistan. It’s not a post that
McMahon will have for very long – and this movie documents exactly why that is.
McMahon’s strategy is woefully wrongheaded, he is given no support, and he
basically lets a journalist see everything he does, who will of course report
it, and make him look bad, leading for him to get replaced by someone else –
who will, of course, do the exact same thing.
At the center of nearly every
scene in the film is Pitt – and if nothing else, you have to say he delivers a
daring performance. Note how I didn’t see it’s a good performance, because I’m
not sure that it is, but he makes a choice, and sticks with it, knowing full
well some will hate it, so let’s give him that. He plays McMahon as a kind of
real life version of George C. Scott’s General Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove –
but somehow wants to make McMahon both broader, and more human. It doesn’t really
work, because how the hell can it. He spends the movie speaking in a strange
clipped voice, constantly squinting, and running in the most bizarre way
imaginable. Had Michod committed to making this an out-and-out comedy or
satire, the performance may really have worked. But he doesn’t do that.
War Machine can never quite
figure out what it wants to be. It is, in essence, about the conflict between
the Obama administration, who wanted to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as
possible, and the soldiers on the ground, who are still being asked to fight,
and in some cases die, for a war they know the administration no longer
supports. Strangely, the film itself almost remains apolitical about the whole
thing – so hard line right wingers can watch the film and see it as a failure
of a cowardly Obama, and hard line left wingers can see McMahon and company as
gung ho war mongers. That’s not really because the movie plays things fair, as
much as it seems like the film has no opinion on anything, ever.
Still, there are scenes that
work. There is another fine supporting performance from Lakeith Stanfield (so
memorable in Short Term 12 and Get Out, among many others) as a young soldier
who quite rightly no longer knows what the hell he’s supposed to do, and doesn’t
shy away from making that known. The third act works better than the rest,
because that’s when there are actual stakes at play, not a bunch of meaningless
chatter like the rest of the film.
But overall, War Machine just
never hangs together. There’s a moment here and there that work, but overall
the film is a mess. It was clearly made by talented people, all of whom made
certain choices throughout – it’s almost as if they never discussed those
choices with each other though, and the result is a film that just doesn’t work.
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