Beyond Repair

Rating: 9/10 (3 August 2017)

Gen. Glen McMahon (Brad Pitt) is a lifer who is sent to Afghanistan to fix the problem. Those who put him in that position want him to do nothing more than to get American soldiers out of that brutal environment, to save lives, and get them home.
But because Glen is an extremely gung-ho conservative patriot who still believes American intervention is able to provide for these Afghani poor
-- foreigners who really don't want any part of US intervention, barbarity, interference and imperialism, nor the promise of household conveniences -- he insists the country can be fixed, and that he's the man to do it.
How? By insisting a coalition of govts. send an additional 40,000 soldiers to help him gain control of the least populated area of that nation, a location void of substance and consequence. Prior generals sent there to bring peace failed, to Glen's mind, and he knows exactly where to start to rid the country of insurgents.
At first it doesn't look like the General will be getting his increased number of troops, but when it comes to light by an interview the General gives to an American TV magazine, that he has had only one short conversation with the President after four years, President Obama concedes, allowing more American soldiers entry into Afghanistan.
He's also promised a face-to-face conversation with the President, but instead is made to pose for pictures to make it appear he's had talks with him. It's all a farce.
None of this would have taken place in the first place if the entire political system was not fraught with the most intense incompetence. The President is good at only one thing: putting patches on problems at any cost, without regard for any true vision or purpose. It's all about maintaining power and money to him.
There is nothing supportive about any cogs in this broken network of pretentious, flawed and profoundly unqualified managers. They will turn on one another in a blink and don't care who is thrown under the bus just as long as they stay in power.