While many of us condemned the unjustified invasion of Iraq in the first part of this century, few of us focused on the much more justifiable disaster that was the invasion of Afghanistan. History has taught army after army after army for thousands of years not to bother with Afghanistan, but the warlike never seem to learn, and presently it’s our turn to discover what every would-be conqueror has known for ages – whatever it is you want from Afghanistan, it’s not worth it.
War Machine spent 90% of its good stuff in the initial 20 minutes, first telling us the above dilemma and then illustrating it in finer (unnecessary) detail for another two hours. It is 2009, the new Obama presidency has begun and we are at a crux in the war for Afghanistan. It is time for a new leader, the Spartan and enthusiastic General Glen McMahon (Brad Pitt). It’s funny how a successful general is like a prize fighter, surrounded at all times by a questionable collection of fools and sycophants.
The movie makes it clear early on that it doesn’t hold General McMahon in a great deal of regard – to paraphrase, there are two types of military brass: the shrewd and the gung ho; and the gung ho are always promoted above the shrewd. I’m with the movie here; I’m no military scholar, but I’m pretty sure history says shrewdness beats optimism on the battle field. War Machine tells us immediately that Afghanistan is unwinnable and now in charge of U.S. forces is a guy who insists he can win it.
Brad Pitt does a wonderful job finding General McMahon as a guy with a few select pieces of his brain just sorta missing. It’s not that he can’t think or reason; he just has little use for such mechanisms. Were he not above such, he’d probably be one of those online trolls who taunts “weaker” people for taking time off to sleep or give birth or such. War Machine lets us know how comical it finds his dogged determination through illogic.
The problem with War Machine is that it turns from a big movie into a small one. Lacking for different ways to describe how screwed up Afghanistan is and weary of teasing General McMahon, the movie instead follows McMahon and starts to admire him; it even feels sorry for him when he gets stiffed by President Obama in Germany. I think the shift in tone goes something like: somebody’s gotta lead the troops in Afghanistan, why not him? What makes his exact lack of nuance or intuition worse than anything that has already happened? If you must fight a war you can’t win, isn’t it better that the person in charge of fighting it believes you can?
There’s some great narrative within War Marchine – a lot of it centers on the futility of why? With no army to attack, enemies hide among the civilian population and
it becomes impossible to tell good guy from bad. At that point, there is no “winning hearts and minds;” you may as well invade Alabama to capture all Confederate sympathizers. And imagining that invasion and the resulting civilian deaths aren’t the actions that create future terrorism is just blind stupidity. Folks who complain about where your tax dollars go – you might just look at how much we’re spending on military.
Well, gee, don’t you find American wars just so much fun? Aren’t they a laugh riot? I don’t think there was room for War Machine to be a great film. Satiric war movies tread a fine line – nobody wants a genuine ridicule of the military. But you can’t appeal to the doves without defeathering a hawk, and War Machine proved only capable of the task for a few minutes at a time. However, I liked enough of it for mild recommendation – maybe for Pitt’s performance alone or maybe for the promise of the bigger film it started out being.
Pitt’s in charge of mission futile
Perhaps daft, but no imbecile
Oh, he’s got a plan
Because he’s The Man
And if not, add him to the “used” pile
Rated TV-MA, 122 Minutes
D: David Michôd
W: David Michôd
Genre: Welcome to a quagmire
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Cynics
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: “These colors don’t run!”
