War Machine
Netflix
Director David Michod, best-known for Animal Kingdom and The Rover, simply appears to have bitten off more than he can chew with this one.
War Machine is a mostly engaging but strangely off-key Netflix original production, with a bizarrely miscast Brad Pitt in the lead role.
Pitt plays four-star American General Glen McMahon, the new guy sent in to “win” the war in Afghanistan, but who is laid low by a candid story written by a Rolling Stone reporter.
Followers of world affairs will immediately realise the film is based – ever so loosely – on the cautionary tale of General Stanley McChrystal, who experienced the above scenario in real life.
And that’s about where any semblance to reality ends.
They spent $60 million on this, and it shows, but the efforts were cruelled from the word go by the horrible miscasting of Pitt, who has none of the gravitas required to play a man in one of the top slots in the corporation.
Instead, Pitt slips into horrible caricature – one hand a claw, one eye a constant squint, one eyebrow perpetually raised, his movements apelike.
Worse, he plays the general as a clown. There still exist a deluded few who believe a moron can lead the greatest military machine in the history of the world – but why this film panders to these mouth-breathers, I have no idea.
From that point, what could have been a deeply thoughtful film is completely lost as to its tone – is it farce, black comedy, high comedy, satire, or are there serious points to be made?
We’ll never know, because the project lacks a lead capable of carrying the role.
Even the other key role – that of the Rolling Stone reporter, is horribly miscast, and played in a laid-back, lackadaisical style – when in reality the newsman in question was a hard charger.
For anyone with even a passing knowledge of the events “portrayed“, the departure from reality is so great as to severely hamper the film’s watchability.
And with most of the film’s smart bombs so decidedly dumb, the bigger questions about the war on terror are destined to remain unanswered – by this film, anyway.
– Jason Beck
