FROM THE ARCHIVES 3: a review of "War, Inc."

Here is a review I wrote sometime in 2008. The film played in my city for one solitary week and I was glad that I was able to catch it.

"WAR, INC." Directed by Joshua Seftel
**** (4 stars)

In recent years, I have had this disturbing feeling that I am living in a surreal cartoon as I look at this country, most notably during events surrounding the war and the current election season. It has been one "through the looking glass" moment to another and once I have my bearings, it's time to fall through another magic mirror. Co-writer and Producer John Cusack's passion project, "War, Inc." taps into that very emotional terrain with a self- described "incendiary political cartoon" that gleefully lays waste to our current political landscape using all of the tools necessary for a pitch black satire.

The time is an undetermined near future where everything is owned, controlled and outsourced to and by Tamerlane (a Haliburton stand-in). Currently occupying the fictional world of Turaqistan, Tamerlane assigns a corporate assassin (Cusack) to murder an oil minister named Omar Sharif (funny names are abound in this one) while using a corporate trade show as a cover. Further complicating events is the marriage of over sexualized and emotionally empty pop star Yonica Babyyeah (a game Hilary Duff) to her Middle Eastern version of Kevin Federline plus the presence of a liberal journalist (Marisa Tomei) waiting to blow the lid off the entire operation. From the "Python-esque" high-stepping march to meet Tamerlane's secret Viceroy (always seen through a collage of endlessly morphing faces from John Wayne to Pamela Anderson to Ronald Reagan to a dolphin and so on) to the vulgarity depicted in pop songs to the Implanted Journalistic Experience (meant to suggest the death of modern journalism in the media) and scenes of graphic violence, "War, Inc" hurtles us through a series of kaleidoscopic imagery and ideas with no time to truly linger. This is not a flaw of the film but a representation of what it is like to live through these dark and strange times.

Marisa Tomei (who grows more luminous as she ages) is the audience's moral center as she tries to make sense out of a senseless world, all the while holding onto her uncompromising integrity and humanity. And that is what I took away from this film the most and I applaud Cusack for having the strength to place his moral outrage at our cultural and spiritual decay. To show his rage at a world where nothing is ever enough and everything is bought and sold, including our own souls.

John Cusack is an actor who always seems to be the one who is desperately trying to remain calm and in control even in the most outrageous circumstances and events. Through his natural charm and peerless ability to level the absurdity of characters and situations through his endless razor sharp quips, he always projects a sometimes ironic coolness that helps his characters survive. Yet in this film, as he reprises a variation of his hit man character from 1997's classic "Grosse Point Blank," we see the effects of burying one's humanity as his character numbs his suffering, guilt and nightmares by downing shot glass after shot glass of hot sauce. But, we still see his hollow eyes and shaking hands and possibly, his romantic comedy banter with the morally grounded Tomei suggests a wish for redemption he may or may not receive in the bankrupt world of "War, Inc."

While the film ends on a particularly bleak note, the film is not a downer as it still has to make you laugh--even if nearly all of it is bitter. Much has been said of how this film is this generation's "Dr. Strangelove," and while it does contain several Kubrickian elements (most notably, violence set to classical music), this film reminded me most of the anarchistic films of Alex Cox and the pioneering music videos of former Monkee Michael Nesmith. Like Cox's "Repo Man" and Cusack's own "Tapeheads" (which was Executive Produced by Nesmith) "War, Inc." has an "anything goes" spirit that will not work for everyone but definitely appealed to me within this context. Again, I must applaud John Cusack, one of my favorite actors, for making this film.

Along with his other Iraq-themed film, the beautifully mournful "Grace Is Gone," Cusack has effectively weighed in on the pain and insanity of our times with skill, humor and an enormous sense of heart and humanity. Let us all never lose ours.