In this satire of the commercialization and 'lightheartedness' of war, John Cusack plays Brand Hauser, an assassin sent to to 'Turaqistan' to take out Omar Sharif, who is doing some oil business that will spell trouble for the former Vice President of the US's own company. In addition to this, Hauser must juggle his fake position as a trade show producer, a wedding for pop princess Yonica (Hillary Duff), and a nosy Liberal journalist, Natalie (Marisa Tomei).
Assessing the technical aspects:
- The acting (by the main characters,at least) was good, as was to be expected. Some of John Cusack's dialogue was quite obviously not written for him as he often seemed uncomfortable saying it. . . maybe unrealistic is more accurate. Joan put forth a great, and often hilarious, performance. Marisa Tomei, while I've never been a big fan of hers, was more than suitable for the role and worked well. Hillary Duff, however, was pretty terrible. They needed an attractive Middle Eastern (or Russian, or whatever that accent was supposed to be) pop-star. Unfortunately, they went 0 for 3 with her.
- Like I said above, the writing seemed a little stiff and mismatched at points, especially John Cusack's dialogue. Not much of it, mind, but some. The story also got a bit ludicrous at points, which is fine for a satire to a point, but it took it to a whole new level here. Luckily, the Cusacks and Tomei keep a relatively cool, calm demeanor throughout, and that makes a nice even mix of the craziness of the film and the levelheadedness of the actors.
- Joshua Seftel, who previously had a drought of real credits to his name, did a fine job with a rather wide-spectrum film. He handled the small ($10 million) budget very well, stretching it to make it appear to be much more. Seftel also managed to nicely blend the humour of the story. . . with the painful and hard-to-watch parts of the real war (including slaughter of civilians, etc.).
- As far as the general satire goes, its exaggerated look on the commercializing of war is very well done, especially the 'Golden Palace Poker' ads on the U.S. tanks. At points, it becomes a little too much, but, in the end, it still accurate portrays what it's going for an a young 'Mel Brooks'-type of style.
Overall, the film is very well made for the meager budget and it's definitely worthy of a look. It won't go down as one of the great satires of cinema, but it's certainly not the worst.
7/10.

I had high hopes for Troy and I am so bitterly disappointed. The film was directed so badly it made my stomach ache. The pacing was so slow, the dialogue laughable and the film - well apart from a nice fight scene between Achilles (Pitt) and Hector (Bana) - the rest was shallow.
And why, oh why does Hollywood always insist on rewriting stories to fit 'consumer approval'. Agamemnon didn't die in Troy, the war lasted 10 years and Achilles was killed by Paris OUTSIDE the walls of Troy with an arrow to the ankle! It annoys me that such a classic story as this is turned into a soap.
And don't even start me on the 'lack' of chemistry between Helen and Paris. She was the woman the war was fought over and it didn't even look as if the two of them cared a great deal about the other. No sparks, no emotion, no hope.
I have to say in the films defence Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Peter O' Toole acted very well with a bad script but that isn't enough to save this awful movie.
Can anybody tell me where the £200 million budget went? Maybe in all the trees they used for the funeral pyres - where did they get all those trees?
I am so disappointed it hurts.