BEFORE: This one I had access to from an Academy screener, but it's also on Netflix. Either way of watching it is a little inconvenient - I either have to carry the screener home from work and endure several pop-ups that remind me that the screener is ONLY intended for Academy voters, or I can watch Netflix through the PlayStation, which means the controller has to stay close to the TV set since it doesn't reach the recliner I sit in, so I can't pause the film once it starts without getting up. I suppose there's a third option, I could watch it on my phone, but then it's on a tiny screen and I don't get the full impact. Let's go with Netflix on the big TV screen, as Lakeith Stanfield carries over from "Get Out".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" (Movie #2,644)
THE PLOT: An idiosyncratic general confronts opposition from enemies, allies and bureaucrats while leading a massive rebuild operation in Afghanistan.
AFTER: I suppose I have to add this film to the list of movies that SOUND like they're about super-heroes, only they're not. (War Machine is Iron Man's occasional partner/replacement, his former pilot and bodyguard James "Rhodey" Rhodes.). That list also includes "The Thing", "Nightcrawler" and "The Invisible Woman".
This may sound hard to believe, given the state of the news lately, but there was a time, not very long ago, when our government didn't exactly run very efficiently, especially where war in the Middle East was concerned. The year was 2009, and Obama had inherited the war, sorry "police action", sorry "international peace-keeping coalition event" from George Dubya Bush. The film concerns a new general taking over in Afghanistan, and his task was to make an "assessment" of the situation to give Obama ideas on how to proceed there. This led to the noted "surge" in troops of an extra 40,000 men to quell whatever insurgents remained, but since this set a timeline for eventual withdrawal of troops, some felt that the surge was the worst action to take, since it tipped off any terrorists in the area to the fact that if they could just lie low for another 18 months, they'd be back in business.
Funny story, the surge didn't work, because we STILL have troops there, and it's been 16 years now. Obama eventually handed off the problem to our current Complainer-in-Chief, and there's still no plan to end our presence there. Why should he, when the war keeps attention away from his personal life and all the ways he's lining his own pockets right now? It's funny, within my lifetime we've gone from films that pointed out the futility of war in Korea to films that pointed out the futility of war in Vietnam to films that pointed out the futility of war in the Middle East. I'm starting to think that nobody is paying any attention.
Brad Pitt makes the best out of this clueless general character, but the bad news is, he uses the same mannerisms that he did when he played mental patient Jeffrey Goines in "Twelve Monkeys". Now I'm starting to wonder if he just never stopped playing that character, over and over. General Glen "Glenimal" McMahon (any resemblance to Gen. McChrystal is no doubt purely intentional...) and his top men arrive in the Green Zone to get all the coalition heads, umm, coalesced, and then tour the country to prepare their assessment. But the surge he wants can't take place until after the upcoming election, and then there has to be another election, because more votes were cast than there were Afghani people - so thank God we were there to supervise that election, it sounds like it went well.
McMahon ends up leaking his own assessment to "60 Minutes" so that it will be considered as a strategy, then packs up his aides and heads to Paris, in hopes of getting an additional 10,000 troops and some face-time with Obama, who only spares him about 15 seconds before boarding Air Force One. But he also manages to meet his wife in Paris for their anniversary, and also adds a writer from Rolling Stone to his traveling party. As luck would have it, an erupting volcano in Iceland (I sort of remember that happening) strands all European aircraft, so McMahon and his men charter a bus to get to Berlin, and drink heavily along the way - which would only be a problem if they had a writer from Rolling Stone with them. Oh yeah, they did.
An official in Berlin politely points out that McMahon's numbers just don't add up, and his whole strategy in Afghanistan makes no sense. But hey, that's war for you (sorry, that's "international coalition peace-keeping events" for you) and our whole mission was to go over to another country with all of our guns and tanks and bombs and help keep the peace. You know, to rebuild the place, try to help the people who want to kill us. Sure, that sounds reasonable. Because killing them only creates more bad feelings and more insurgents who want to kill us. It's better to gain their trust and show them we value their way of life and try to keep their society intact. And what's that? In real life, we just bombed Syria. So there you go, collectively we just haven't learned a damn thing.
Also starring Brad Pitt (last seen in "The Big Short"), Anthony Hayes, Emory Cohen (last seen in "Brooklyn"), RJ Cyler, Daniel Betts (last seen in "Fury"), Topher Grace (last seen in "Truth"), Anthony Michael Hall (last seen in "Live by Night"), John Magaro (last seen in "The Finest Hours"), Aymen Hamdouchi (last seen in "Dying of the Light"), Scoot McNairy (last seen in "Wonderland"), Meg Tilly (last seen in "Body Snatchers"), Alan Ruck, Griffin Dunne (last seen in "Bright Lights"), Sian Thomas, Nicholas Jones, Ben Kingsley (last heard in "The Jungle Book"), Tilda Swinton (last seen in "The Zero Theorem"), Will Poulter (last seen in "The Revenant"), Josh Stewart, Reggie Brown, Rufus Wright, Georgina Rylance, with a cameo from Russell Crowe (last seen in "The Nice Guys").
RATING: 4 out of 10 Skype calls
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