An amusing but tossed salad of a film

Rating: 6/10 (27 May 2017)

"War Machine" satirically depicts a fictionalized version of Stanley McChrystal,, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from his arrival in country to (spoiler) his sacking by the president..
The production value is excellent, with a lot of recognizable faces, many of them big (Pitt, Kingsley, and even a cameo by Russell Crowe). It uses real military and Afghan-specific military gear (how it got US Army support, I'll never know) and even gets the uniforms of coalition allies right. For vets, however, prepare to roll your eyes at the obligatory use of the salute as the perceived highest honor a military member can make.
The source material is the late Michael Hastings' book which I have not read, but having read his infamous Rolling Stone article on McChrystal, the figurative tone and voice of the narrator (based on Hastings) seems about right, cynical and contemptuous of his subject. Unless you lean way to the left or simply not a supporter of military use in Afghanistan, the narration gets pretty preachy and even downright wrong (about the success rate of insurgencies, for example),a somewhat unnecessary distraction.
Even for satire, where personalities are flattened and exaggerated and action is simplified, this film still struggles to add even a little depth. Pitt spends most of the film either looking confused, squinting, or saying "with all due respect". Anthony Michael Hall seems to just sneer, swear, and yell. Of course, Americans, particularly the military, are naively optimistic and openly disrespectful of other nationalities and their commander in chief. And wars and warfare can be summed up in glib and ideological oversimplifications.
The story manages to hit a bunch of themes and subject matters. There is commentary on the American way of war, the impact of deployments on marriage, the wisdom of military intervention, the politics of coalition building, and the dynamics of leadership. But the manner in which it chooses to do this constantly shifts.
I think it strives to be a dark comedy, but therein lies its ultimate shortfall. It doesn't know what it wants to be. Which is a shame because the funny parts are sincerely funny (Pitt's character defending the honor of his Afghan aide-de-camp as "the only Afghan in the room", Pitt and his White House (or SecDef?) civilian contact trying to end a video conference, and Ben Kingsly's hilarious (however infrequent) take on President Karzai all come to mind.) But the tone itself is multiple personalities. While it is always mocking (as satires are supposed to be) and skeptical, sometimes it's cutting to the bone, other times very light and whimsical, still other times deeply serious. I won't make the Roger Ebert mistake of speculating what the movie could have been about, but it seems to slink between being (1) a strident anti-military/anti-war/anti-America polemic or (2) a humorous parody of power and bureaucracy or (3) a character assassination of Stanley McChrystal.
It's a watchable and entertaining film with a good look, lots of questions, and steady acting. At end, however, I feel like the conflicted character Marine corporal Billy Cole who states his dilemma, which incidentally is restated in the song playing over the end credits, "I'm confused." Yep, so is the movie and so am I.