War, Inc.

A disastrously heavy-handed satire, War, Inc. follows quirky assassin Brand Hauser (John Cusack) as he heads to the war-torn Middle Eastern country of Turaqistan – where a monolithic corporation run by America’s former Vice President (Dan Aykroyd) is currently waging war against local insurgents. Though assigned the relatively simple task of taking out a meddling Oil Minister (Lyubomir Neikov’s Omar Sharif), Brand soon finds himself caught up in the problems of a whole host of egregiously off-kilter figures – including a famous pop star (Hilary Duff’s Yonica), a left-wing reporter (Marisa Tomei’s Natalie), and an exasperated assistant (Joan Cusack’s Marsha). There’s little doubt that War, Inc. strikes all the wrong notes virtually from the word go, as director Joshua Seftel – working from Cusack, Mark Leyner, and Jeremy Pikser’s downright desperate screenplay – has infused the proceedings with a headache-inducing atmosphere of silliness that’s ultimately catastrophic. The hit-you-over-the-head sensibilities of Seftel and his incompetent cohorts proves instrumental in ensuring that one is consistently left at arm’s length from the material, and it’s subsequently not surprising to note that even the most open-minded viewer will find themselves fruitlessly searching for something (anything) of substance to latch onto. The end result is an effort that feels like a subpar Monty Python sketch unnaturally stretched out to an astonishingly interminable 107 minute running time, with the increasingly obvious nature of the filmmakers’ modus operandi nothing short of infuriating.

no stars out of ****