War, Inc.
Tags: absurd, comedy, satire, entertaining, flashback

Plot synopsis:
The movie opens with Brand Hauser (John Cusack) in Iqaluit, Northern Canada. He enters a bar where some German gentlemen are chatting. He asks for a shot glass, fills it with hot sauce, and throws it back in one gulp. His synapses start firing as he pulls out a gun and shoots each of the Germans. He takes a photo of one of the gentlemen, sends it off, and disposes of the cell phone.Cut to a jet aircraft. Hauser is the only person on board, but he is regularly chatting with the GuideStar voice. Though it is helping with navigation, it also is providing psychiatric advice.On the flight, he chats with the former Vice President (Dan Ackroyd). The VP is sitting on the toilet throughout the video call. Hauser is instructed to fly to Turaqistan, where the VP's company, Tamerlane, is engaged in the first war to be entirely outsourced. His mission is to assasinate the Oil Minister, Omar Sherif (Lyubomir Neikov). He is to be hit because he is insisting that Turaqistan build a cross country pipeline on their own, shunning a bid from Tamerlane. For cover, he is to act as the Chair of a Tamerlane Trade Mission, which is holding a trade fair within the Green Zone (the Emerald City) of the Turaqustan capital. A highlight of the fair will be the marriage of pop star Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff) to the son of the Emerit.Hauser arrives, and meets his contact, Marsha Dillon (Joan Cusack).Tanks with sponsor decals, city is a mess, lots of bombs & explosions in various marketplaces.Please help fill this in! Various shots of hot sauce, flashbacks to a row with his CIA boss.Reporter Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei) can't get into the show (not the right pass). Cusack invites her to his office. Realizes she is left wing biased, gets rid of her, but sets up meeting for that evening over drinks.Hauser goes into Popeye Chicken restaurant to meet "The Viceroy" of Tamerlane - . After Get Smart style secret tunnel, he meets a video screen projecting American media heros (John Wayne, Mr. T, Donald Trump, etc.), speaking with an altered voice.Yonica and entourage arrive. Hauser is not impressed.Tries to kill Sharif with remote control rifle, but interrupted when dry cleaning is delivered to his Humvee.Milking cobra for poison when Yonica drops by. She tries to seduce him, but he is disgusted. Takes Sharif out to dinner, but can't get the venom in due to the close scrutiny of Sharif's bodyguards. Sharif spots the reporter, and Hauser arranges a meeting.Yonica & entourage arrive, and in the chaos, Hauser crushes the vial of cobra venom, breaking it in his hand. He goes to the restroom to clean up, and is confronted by 2 members of the entourage. He easily dispatches them both.Reporter wants to get out and see the country outside of the Green Zone. Hauser sets her up with a local film crew. She discovers a DVD case (premade) for Yonica's XXX rated wedding night video. She exposes Yonica and her husband on CNN.Hauser "fixes" the situation with Yonica, her fiance, and the emerit father. The fiance will blame one of the entourage, the principals will be blameless, and the wedding will go on.Finds Yonica in her room, playing simple accoustic ballad - realizes she's not who the press make her out to be. He arranges for an interview with the reporter.While waiting for the film crew to set up in an abandoned house, Hauser finds some nice wine, caviar, and other snacky things. He opens the wine with a compressed air needle cork popper - then discretely pockets the device.Just prior to the interview, in a heart-to-heart discussion, Hauser tells the girls about his ex-wife (murdered) and daughter (kidnapped). He tells them it happened because of who he is.The entourage burst in. Hauser kills all (one with a shot of compressed air to the brain). The girls walk in as he dispatches the last person. They now have confirmation that he is not who he seemed to be.The girls take a taxi from the interview location to their respective hotels. Yonica gets out first, and the reporter is kidnapped. Kidnappers make some rather silly demands (destruction of Israel & a star ball player for a player to be named later).Hauser now has to rescue the reporter, kill Sharif, and oversee the wedding at the trade show. He emails Sharif, and under the name of the reporter, invites him to a hotel suite. He jumps in a Humvee, and takes off looking for the reporter outside the Emerald City. He asks some kids if they know where a kidnapped person might be. They tell him there are 3 in the immediate area - he's got to be more specific. They direct him to the group that has a dark-haired female.Flashbacks take place here, and we learn that his old boss, Walken (Ben Kingsly) tries to kill him when he tried to quit some years ago. Instead, Hauser kills his boss (crushed in a garbage truck).The reporter is rescued, and brought back to the trade show to be in the wedding party. Hauser heads to the hotel to meet Sharif.Sharif walks into the hotel suite, expecting to find the reporter. Instead, Hauser grabs him, and warns him that someone else will likely be coming for him. He heads back to the Popeye Chicken shop, looking for the Viceroy. Hauser realizes that he must be behind the projection screen, so smashes it. Sees that Walken is still alive, but crippled, and restricted to a wheelchair. Not only is Walken the Viceroy, but he admits that he had his wife killed, and Yonica is his kidnapped daughter!!Now the guards are after him, so he uses Walken as a shield, and gets out to the wedding, disrupting the ceremony. Walken escapes and heads back to his bunker. He calls for a cruise missle to level the trade show building. The missle is launched, but goes off course, and hits the Popeye restaurant, killing Walken.Yonica, the reporter, and Hauser get to the airport, where Yonica's honeymoon plane is waiting.Just as we think they've gotten away, we see a heat seeking missle heading towards the plane.The former Vice President holds a press conference, and blames extremists and terrorists for the explosion at the Popeye, and the killing of our beloved Viceroy.Credits roll to a Joe Strummer song.Need to add the corporate references, slogans, etc. Can't wait for the DVD!

Review: It isn't.This is an old-fashioned screwball comedy, with ridiculously coincidental plot twists, stock characters (given some depth in fun performances by John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Marisa Tomei and Hillary Duff) and a straightforward approach to the political content.You see, the filmmakers' political points are things nearly all of the country already knows are true.
Yeah, we understand that the corporations profiting off the war are corrupt, inept pigs, the political leaders in charge of it are even more inept buffoons, and American imperialism has never looked crasser and more out of touch than it does right now -- but none of that is the point.Here, all of that noise is the setting that they lampoon -- sometimes in genius ways -- as the backdrop for a silly romp, as John Cusack's character (the hit-man with a heart) tries to change his life with the help of the do-gooder journalist who doesn't trust him (Tomei) and the young Middle Eastern starlet who wants to call off her marriage (Duff).
It's simple fun, but if somehow you can't see reality and you think the war is going well and everyone involved with it is doing a good job and there's no corruption and people in the Middle East wish our Western culture would supplant theirs, then you might not find it as funny.For all the rest of us, it was a light comedy with a political edge..
Joshua Seftel's first film - a satire of memorable proportions - is about just as the title suggests: The corporations effect on War.The film is about a mercenary (John Cusack) traveling to Turaqistan (not a real country, fyi) to help the American government 'get their message across' to Turaqistan's leaders.
The comedy involved the film isn't obvious at all - it's quite subtle (Tamerlane tanks, dry-cleaning service etc), and it changes with the twists & turns in the plot.I may be the only one, but I won't compare this with "Grosse Point Blank", because, it's different.
On the other hand, his sister (Joan Cusack) was incredible in her delivery of lines & comedic timing - even though she was hardly in the film (I'd say the same about Ben Kingsley).Marisa Tomei plays a convincing reporter, and manages to pull it off.
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.
In fact, the predictability of the end is the only thing that keeps me from rating it higher as the story twists and turns it's way to the expected conclusion.If you like your comedy broad and physical, there is probably not enough here to keep you interested the entire movie.
My point is this: don't discredit this review by thinking I'm not a part of the choir Cusack is preaching to in War, Inc. There's no question WI's politics are tailored to appeal to my demographic, but the problem is, the tailoring is substandard and the the film Cusack co- wrote, produced and stars in, fits worse than a cheap suit.As they say "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Cusack, his co-writers, director Joshua Seftel and even the actors involved, no doubt had every intention of making an anti- war film every bit as biting and funny as Robert Altman's M*A*S*H, unfortunately for the viewer, they ended up with one as unfunny and unintelligent as Michael Moore's Canadian Bacon.The current state of US politics, foreign policy and the war "effort" is already absurd and, as a result, tragic, pathetic and, regrettably comical -- just watch The Daily Show and see for yourself.
John Cusack was just so funny in this,, throw in Dan Akroyd, and you have lot's of laughs,, then throw in the sexy Hillary duff, so America needs to come up with an imaginary war to get the ball rolling on an assassination attempt,, Cusack who plays a down and out hit-man,, didn't we see this before,, lol, so he has to pretend that he is a producer of a trade show,, and he is trying to produce a show that will have a young teen star performing,, Hillary Duff.
In the first 45 minutes you don't always understand the scenario of the private security forces, the American soldiers, the company etc etc, it does get a little confusing.However the performances of John Cusack and Hilary Duff are top drawer and with the humour this is certainly worth watching..
No wonder why it was largely ignored in the U.S.: it exposes our murderous foreign policy for what it really is.Another good film from this era, Rendition, was also totally dismissed simply because it showed, accurately, that the U.S. is a war machine bent on torturing, murdering, and maiming civilians in its quest for total world domination.A clever plot, good acting, some big stars (John Cusack, Ben Kingsley, Marisa Tomei anyone?) and some scenes of hilarity should have made this movie a hit.
With a string of anti-military/anti-war movies already being destroyed at the box office, it's almost inconceivable that a studio of any kind would want itself associated with this script.At first, it may have seemed like some kind of politically motivated derivative of Grosse Point Blank with Akroyd and Cusack(s) all over again.
Then satire in the background creates big comedy situations and then back again to our hero whose background we are told little by little until we can foresee how it will all be brought together.On the whole it's pretty funny, the acting is great, but you don't feel there's a real big movie, only an independent flick struggling with settings - well, working its guts off to get the most of each set to be honest, pleased with its premise but lacking a real steady stance.
In the end, "War, Inc." became too aggressive to laugh along with it like we supposed to.John Cusack, once again, plays a hit man (which seemed like a sequel to "Gloss Point Blank").
Before making War, Inc., John Cusack stated that he had starred in 10 good movies to date.
The movie attempts to use the plot lines as tools to set up shock and surprise, but suffice to say that everyone in attendance was able to spot the film's major "plot twists" a full hour before they were revealed, which is surprising considering the movie is barely an hour long.Cusack is a talented actor, and gives a decent performance that attempts to instill some emotion into this unimaginative script, yet even his talents cannot salvage the writing he has to work with.
the "turakistan" country and "the emerald city" are definitely trying to resemble Iraq and Baghdad just as much as the corporation "Tamerlane" goes for "haliburton" (with the vice- president Dan Aykroyd playing Dick Cheney, LOL).there are quiet a moments actually where the movie is DEAD SERIOUS, not even sarcastic anymore (main example would be as how John Cusack character deals with his depression, but not only).
Joan has a line at one point that goes like this: "and here we have a book written by you know who, about how i conquered the world and resolved the issues with my dad".PRICELESS)))the sister and brother Cusacks play good together as always, same as in "Grosse PointeBlank" i would say a bit more "mature".Marisa Tomeihere does not show her butt and breasts to "impress" us (like she did recently in "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"), but instead she has a very serious role, and manages to pull it off quiet well.many critics don't get it (can not do so, or do not want to).
this feature stands to deliver a message and NOT to get Oscars, or have "visuals" sort of getting the viewer into buying the latest "HDTV experience" TV sets...i have noticed even in my local papers that this movie gets bad re-views because is not "artistic", while PRO Iraq war movies get good thumbs up for being "balanced" apparently and "engaging".makes one wonders how much all the world mainstream media is concentrated in the hands of a bunch of guys...i bet this feature will prove a hit overseas as much more then it will in north America.
having the "regular" American soldier wearing the "Tamerlane" corporate logo on its combat dress is pretty insulting BUT EFFECTIVE in showing reality as it IS, or will be soon the way things go so far.some PRICELESS shots: upon "liberation", the country gets invaded commercial advertisements; a hilarious scene about how future journalists will likely gather "news"("anything is got to be better then this x-box bullocks"))); soldiers dealing with their "frustration"; overall, i do not recommend this to "conservatives" or "hard core" patriots of some kind or another.this feature is not made to reach to the "minds of souls" of the people(as mainstream propaganda and commercial interests always try to do so).instead it contains a message well defined for realists, and towards some ideological goals apparently "always" short of realizing..
I love all the actors in this movie, so I brought it without checking IMDb and would really advice people to skip it, not to waste precious time.The plot is convoluted, acting - so so, there is nothing funny, there is nothing to make you think about what this "satire" is trying to tell.
The story could've better executed had the film not diverted from its initial promise.John Cusack was good, Duff was also better than expected playing an over-the-top Mideast pop star.
This is a terrible film, poor directing, script, and cast.It was like someone was trying to make a modern remake of "Catch 22",but failed.The comedy sucked, the satire sucked, everything sucked.I hope whoever wrote the script is out of a job, along with anyone else involved.Cusak does his best to carry the film, as lets face it hes not going to turn down a million bucks just because its s**t.This could have been good, the general concept is sound, just not the execution.But i will be making a note of the director, and writers so i can steer clear in future.I felt sorry for Dan Aykroyd and Joan Cusack , two comedy greats put to shame in this debacle.And how they ever got Ben Kingsley to be in it i don't know.This film is everything thats wrong with Hollywood at the moment, I'm just glad European films are carrying the team.Looking at past projects of the writers and director will tell you all you need to know, they have never done anything good.Please i beg you don't watch this film, because if i see this win an award, i do not think i could take it.So many bad films win awards these days despite, everyone thought it sucked.Just because a lot of people watch a film does not mean its good..
this movie have all.The Cusack brothers were in the movie perfect, John making the whole action but Joan made this movie really funny.Tomei worked really good in this one, John, Hilary and Marisa make the best team i have ever seen...
This film offered three of the stars of one of my favorite movies, "Grosse Point Blank", (John Cusack, Joan Cusack and Dan Aykroyd).
I'd like to begin my review by thanking John Cusack for taking the time to write such a convincing review anonymously to try to trick people into watching this "comedy" film.
He co-produced this one and also had a hand in the writing, so I guess he's got to take his share of the blame for turning what could have been a sharp satire into a turgid, vaguely confusing drama.Cusack plays Brand Hauser, a hit-man of a future in which corporations are hired by nations to fight their wars for them.
Sadly, that's about as cutting as the satire gets, and as the story unfolds, spending way too much time focusing on the non-romance of Hauser and journalist Marisa Tomei, the number of missed opportunities keeps mounting until they reach an embarrassingly high quotient.The film has a few moments where it briefly comes to life, but they're few and far between.
John Cusack, co-produced, wrote, and starred in this black-comedy that using some hard edged dialogue, scenes with dark twisted humor that makes a strong statement about business and war.
I feel so sorry for John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Ben Kingsley, Marisa Tomei and Hillary Duff for getting involved with this movie.
It's a confusing mix of genres and a confusing and busy plot.Immediately as the movie begins, a sense of déjà-vu will hit some viewers, as John Cusack's Brand Hauser is almost a carbon copy of another character of his: Martin Blank from Grosse Pointe Blank.
To be Honest the reason i went to see this movie is because of Hilary is in it and i gotta say it turns out to be a big disappointment, she surely changed a lot since 18 years old you can tell from the material girl and this one, it's not that i don't like her outfit, i just can't stand all the dirt talk and seducement it's just doesn't like her, but one of the good things about this movie is the performances by John Cusack, Marisa Tomei was excellent, some people found this movie funny but i didn't laugh the entire time all, i can say is this is a meaningless, political joke and it needs better editing and better screenplay..
It's one of my favorite satires of all time, up there with Bulworth or the Truman Show, with some bits of brilliant writing, asking real questions about corporate war, evil, and compassion, and with good performances by Cusack, Cusack, Kingsley, Tomei, Duff, & many supporting cast.
As the title suggests, "War, Inc." is a satire about the "business" that is war, in particular the American propensity for bombing a Middle Eastern country to smithereens (i.e., Iraq and Afghanistan), then exploiting it for everything it's worth – all in the name of "democracy." In this particular case, it is the fictional nation of Turaqistan, which the U.S. has recently invaded and where it is now contracting out all its security and reconstruction services to a private corporation called Tamerlane, modeled, none too subtly, on Halliburton and KBR.John Cusack stars as Brand Hauser, a covert operator working under the auspices of the former vice-president of the United States (Dan Akroyd), whose mission is to take out the CEO of an oil company at a gala wedding reception that Brand himself is supposed to organize.
While in the "safe zone" - known in common parlance as the Emerald City - Brand meets his high-strung assistant (played by Cusack's real-life sister Joan), the promiscuous celebrity bride (the typecast Hilary Duff), a fellow hit man (Ben Kingsley) who has some personal issues with Brand, and Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei), a liberal reporter from the Nation, who is there to expose the multinational skullduggery and corruption taking place in the country – or as she affectionately calls it "a democracy on the march land-grab." Written by Cusack, Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser and directed by Joshua Seftel, "War, Inc." is a largely hit-and-miss affair, with moments of insight and humor alternating with moments of silliness and juvenalia.
- Corporations take over war in the future and use a lone assassin Brand Hauser (John Cusack) to do their wet-work against rival CEOs. A dark comedy satirizing the military and corporations alike.
(2008) **1/2 John Cusack, Marisa Tomei, Hilary Duff, Joan Cusack, Ben Kingsley, Dan Aykroyd, Sergej Trifunovic, Lyubomir Neikov, Ned Bellamy, (Voice of: Montel Williams)A hit-and-miss-21st Century "STRANGELOVE"John Cusack  who co-wrote the script with Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser  stars as a jaded hit-man named Brand Hauser who is burnt out but decides to follow thru on one final assignment by icing a Middle-Eastern oil minister named Omar Sharif (yes, not THAT Omar Sharif but you get the tone here from this misfire for a laugh) commandeered by the ex-Vice President of The USA (Aykroyd, Cusack's old "Grosse Pointe Blank" co-hort, doing a mean Dick Cheney manqué turn here), enlisting Brand to do the deed under the guise of a Trade Show Producer in mythical Turaqistan (read: Iraq/Afghanistan) for the American private corporation Tamerlane (read: Halliburton).
STRANGELOVE" but for all intense and purposes there are sadly more misses than hits in this broad try for laughs amidst political message (an unjust war being outsourced by American capitalism, check!) While Cusack riffs on his Martin Blank from the aforementioned "Pointe" he does add some nice touches of his man in black (he does shots of Tabasco sauce to take the edge off), the rest of the cast plays catch up (except sister Joan who is a riot as the high-strung aide- de-camp for Hauser and has one of the film's funniest laugh-out lines: "My mass communications skills are finally paying off") for the most part.
If a Joan Cusack sex tape ever comes out, I'm sure she'll do a better acting job in that than she does in War, Inc. Hilary Duff is so terrible, this role should end her career.
The only job she should be able to get is something in the field of medical waste disposal.The only way I could make it through this movie without killing myself was to squint really, really, really, really hard and pretend that the Cusacks and Dan Aykroyd were making a sequel to Gross Pointe Blank where Martin Blank was having a very bad acid trip.The only people who should like War, Inc. are George W.
This John Cusack film of what it would be like if Big corporations directed our wars.
It stars John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Hillary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Ben Kingsley, and Dan Akroyd.The gist of the movie is that hit man Hauser (played by John Cusack) has been assigned to assassinate the president of some middle eastern country with a made up name.