Worthy Effort but Lacking

Rating: 6/10 (13 February 2020)

Is this a comedy, a drama, a war film??? To be honest, I'm not really sure. Should we laugh, smirk, be angry, take it seriously? Again, don't know. War Machine seems to walk a tightrope between the aforementioned three genres while through its entirety, the film's identity is completely muddled which in turn leaves the viewer with the difficult task of interpreting what exactly they are watching and how exactly they should in turn feel. With that, there are many positive and negative aspects to War Machine...
1. War Machine gives us a credible, yet simplistic, critique of American neo-conservative foreign policy. Why exactly are we in Afghanistan? What is our goal? What are we accomplishing there? Is there a valid strategy to accomplish the goal? According to War Machine, that answer is "no." To think that as Americans we can take suburban Des Moines and simply drop it into the middle of Afghanistan, Iraq, or anyplace in the world with possesses oppressive dictatorial regimes without considering the engrained cultural and religious dogmas which exist in the population of our potential adversaries is both naive and idiotic. Do the Afghanis want what we have in the West??? Maybe some of them do but as a whole, the answer is no they don't. War Machine conveys this message quite aptly.
2. The script is well written and superbly acted by Brad Pitt as Gen. McMahon. His gruff voice, annoyed facial expressions, demanding demeanor, and unusual running style of keeping his arms at his side make him perfectly believable as a broken in career military veteran tasked with winning a seemingly unwinnable conflict. Bravo to Mr. Pitt! He earns a 10/10.