War, Inc.: Grade A

A
War, Inc. (2008)
John Cusack, Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Joan Cusack, Dan Ackroyd, Ben Kingsley. Director Joshua Seftel.

In the “future,” a huge military contractor, a thinly disguised Halliburton, occupies a middle eastern country, Turaqistan (get it?). The CEO, played very vice-presidentially by Ackroyd, hires John Cusack, a professional assassin, to take out a certain oil minister. The assassin’s cover is as the head of the corporation’s enormous trade show, organized by his assistant, sister Joan. Meanwhile, Tomei is a dogged investigative reporter who smells scandal. Kingsley has a small but funny part as some kind of evil bad guy, and Duff has an equally wild part as a bizarre sex-crazed belly dancer. It is all just madcap fun as those hilarious car bombs blow up all around.

The dialog is funny and the satire is often sharp, but this is not laugh-a-minute. Serious issues are raised about violence, torture, the commercialization of war, political corruption, American imperialism, and so on. But nobody wants to see a moralizing anti-war movie, so those serious moments are short and sandwiched between thick slices of silly nonsense, with plenty of crude jokes for the youngsters, sophisticated film allusions, and subtle wordplay. You might take it as a throwaway comedy and you wouldn’t be far wrong, except for the very serious political themes just under the veneer of the satire. Even though it is not a grade A comedy nor a grade A thriller, the artistic value of what this movie attempts to do makes it a must-see.

Both Cusacks are great; can’t get enough of them. John is a good comic actor with just the right tone of pseudo-seriousness. Tomei is fascinating no matter what kind of a role. The politically aware audience will detect a left-leaning bias, but the genuinely funny comedy should overcome political annoyance.

Charlie Wilson’s War: Grade A

A
Charlie Wilson’s War (2007)
Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Amy Adams, Ned Beatty. Director Mike Nichols.

Hanks is Charlie Wilson, a real Texas congressman in the 1980’s who sat on several important committees and was able to surreptitiously get funding to supply weapons to Muhadjadeen in Afghanistan who were fighting off the Russian invasion of 1980. Hoffman is a CIA analyst whose goal is to “kill Russians” and he facilitates Wilson’s scheme. Roberts is a wealthy, Christian, anti-communist Texas socialite (and sometimes dalliance for Wilson), who throws fund-raisers so Wilson can get re-elected and carry out the plan. The plan was enormously expensive but the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan in 1988. As the movie ends, Wilson cannot get funding to rebuild the country. Hoffman reports that the victorious, well-armed Afghan chieftains are moving to Kabul to take over the government, but nobody in congress cares about Afghanistan any more, if they ever did.

The movie is more enjoyable if you know recent history in the Middle East. That also lets you in on many of the wicked jokes. But even if you don’t know history, this movie could almost be called a comedy because the script is so consistently clever and witty. Hanks delivers his best acting in a complex, nuanced role. Hoffman is fantastic and I wanted to seem more of him, but it wasn’t his story. Roberts was cute and funny in her Texas bouffant wig.

It’s a funny and serious story at the same time. If there is a message, it does not try to hit you over the head like Lions for Lambs did but presents a subtle anti-war conclusion, because despite the enormous cost and effort, what was really achieved? If the Russians had prevailed in Afghanistan, it would have been for only 10 years until the empire broke up anyway. Did the war drain their treasury and contribute to the break-up? Maybe so. Maybe we should take a lesson from that in our own time.

Lions for Lambs: Grade D

D
Lions for Lambs (2007)
Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise. Director Robert Redford.

This anti-war movie is a diatribe urging young people to get involved in politics to oppose the war (in Iraq), which is portrayed as ill-conceived, unsuccessful, and morally illegitimate. Cruise is a US senator who has a new plan to win the war by increased military action. He is portrayed as if he were Commander in Chief, when really, all a senator can do is authorize or cut off funding for a war, but this is the movie’s way to avoid direct criticism of the president. The senator releases news of new military action to reporter Streep. They have a snappy dialog about the legitimacy of the war, its history, aims, and processes, but it just rehashes familiar arguments. Lefty Streep wants the Republican senator to take responsibility for disastrous foreign policy but he changes the subject to argue an unrelated point. He wants to talk about the future, not "dwell" on the past. These attitudes and rhetorical strategies fairly represent today’s political discourse, making the senator look either stupid or dishonest, but surely self-blind.

Redford is an unlikely political science professor who chastises his star student for apathetically choosing personal ambition over political engagement. It is the "message” of the movie, that young people need to get involved, but it is a simplistic view delivered with deadening Redfordian pomposity. The professor tells of two other students who got involved by enlisting in the army. That option is portrayed ambiguously. He criticizes it, but the soldiers themselves justify it. Those soldiers end up in Afghanistan, in a set of dark-blue-filtered scenes that is so muddy and dim you can’t even make out their faces. I think that was done to disguise the unconvincing Styrofoam rocks and powdered snow. With plenty of noisy but meaningless gunfire, this segment of the movie is to remind us that if you go into the Service, you could be killed. Better you should lick envelopes at campaign headquarters.

The well-worn arguments in this movie are stated, not portrayed in a story that might bring them to life. I happen to agree completely with the sentiments and attitudes expressed but that doesn’t make it a good movie. Acting by Streep is worth watching, but that’s about all. Directing is adequate for the talking heads but dreadful for the ambushed soldiers. I think the filmmakers failed to get sufficiently engaged themselves and settled for easy speechifying, frittering away a powerhouse cast.

In the Valley of Elah: Grade A

A
In the Valley of Elah
Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon; Writer-Director Paul Haggis.

When you send 18 year old children into a war, you should not be surprised if they come back intellectually and morally confused. Amputees get our sympathy, but the subtle wounds to the soul are at least as tragic. It’s a tale told before, but one that bears repeating. Coming Home told the same story about a Vietnam vet, as did many others. Here it is a soldier recently back from Iraq who has gone missing and his parents (Jones and Sarandon) search for him. Jones is a retired sheriff who doggedly pursues the clues to find his son. Theron is a local detective who rebuffs his amateur help at first but eventually comes to trust him and sympathize. It’s not much of a spoiler to say that the son is dead, because the core of the story is the whodunit, with good suspense maintained as the clues slowly accumulate. Acting from Sarandon, although brief, is superior. Jones plays his usual stiff-backed, taciturn but ironic self, and Theron is adequate although disappointingly restrained. She really is much better than what we see here. The music was good, from a full orchestra, but unnecessary, adding nothing. Sets and costumes are unremarkable. The movie’s virtues are that it is an engaging murder mystery, very well told, with a strong social message.

Shut Up and Sing: Grade B

B

Shut Up and Sing

The Dixie Chicks (Natalie Maines, Emily Robison, Martie McGuire).

This is a documentary of the rise and fall and rise of country music act, The Dixie Chicks, starting from the 2003 anti-war incident in which Natalie announced that she was ashamed that George Bush was from her home state of Texas. As is well-known, conservative groups then mounted a campaign against the group, boycotting their records and the radio stations that played them. Most country stations (owned by only a few giant corporations), stopped playing their records. The movie shows the girls discussing their dismay and anxiety, and trying to rebuild their career after this political victimization. The film ends before their triumphant 2007 best album Emmy. It is a moving personal story, a brief look behind the scenes at the group and the industry, and it has a nice free speech theme. The women are inviting and likeable and the music is good. Overall, however, there is little substance. This was not really a free speech constitutional issue. Natalie first tries to minimize her comment as a joke or “misstatement”, but then later decides it is a righteous issue. None of the women seems to realize that the whole incident had nothing to do with them, but that they were pawns in the battle between the reds and the blues in American culture. We don’t learn too much about the music industry, although there are some tantalizing clues. One gets the impression that country music fans and their conservative radio stations deserve each other. The fact that this documentary exists at all indicates some extremely shrewd marketing people in there somewhere. We don’t learn much about the women themselves. They have babies and husbands, and that’s wonderful, but there is very little biographical information. We have no idea where Natalie came from or who she is. We really don’t even know what the women believe. I’m sure I could look all this up, but the point is, the documentary is superficial. I can imagine in the future there might be a definitive bio-pic on the Chicks. This isn’t it. Still, as an annotation of a curious episode in American pop culture, it is a watchable film.