War Machine

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source: War Machine

I cringed watching this movie. Genuinely cringed. It was like someone had told Brad Pitt to ham it up as much as possible. There's no point in the film you feel the character he portrays is real. I don't know whether the script was so bad he felt he had to give his character all sorts of odd flaws and quirks but having served in the Military, there is nothing about any of the characters that was real, not would *any* of them act like that, especially at their level and rank. Their dialogue is completely flawed and even if they were trying to portray the team as one step removed from a bunch of frat boys it's still so far away from being engaging it's awful. The story is poorly told as well and from beginning to end it fails to deliver any form of satisfaction in terms of content, entertainment, or any other metric with which you might judge a good film. Possibly the worst film I have seen in years and Brad Pitt is normally not too bad, not my favourite actor but certainly I've never seen him do this badly before.

One of the oddest movies I've seen in a while. I assumed from the preview of the Brad Pitt character that the movie would be a satire or comedy. Unfortunately, the movie seems to wander from political commentary to drama to satire... a big melting pot that doesn't evolve. The only surprise is that the overall message about Obama was that he was an "orator" and incompetent about running the military. While that message is not surprising, what was surprising was the liberal Hollywood celebs like Pitt that sold the message. If you are left leaning, then you won't be let down as this movie released on Memorial Day (choke...) brings it back home with the narrator firmly planting an anti-American rhetoric and anti-war message. At least the message is consistent since the end of the Vietnam War,

This movie tried to overlay a childish caricature of the Afghan War and its actors onto a flat and uninspiring story with unbelievably deranged and almost mentally incompetent characters it was clearly attempting to defame. Indeed, the unjust treatment of General McChrystal, who is the thinly veiled protagonist in the character of General McMahon, is continued in this 60 million dollar film. Ironically, the movie would have been a lot more interesting with some dramatic irony. Perhaps they could have contraposed the deranged, unjust and unreliable narrator, to a tragic hero, as opposed to recycling the cliché of the out of touch military man who is megalomaniacally seeking his own glory at the expense of lives of his men and the poor civilians who have to pay the price? Even though American Sniper stood back from making clear political judgments on the Iraq War, it successfully managed to capture the man and the American Spirit, so it was far more powerful than tired, smug pacifism of Bore Machine.

This new Netflix original directed by David Michod is a powerful statement not just about the futility of our 16-year war in Afghanistan, but more importantly, the whole concept of counterinsurgency as outlined in the Army's Counterinsurgency Field Manual (FM 3-24 *MCWP 3-33.5). Every set piece scene hits home displaying the ignorance, the futility, and the hubris of our efforts in Afghanistan. Even when some politicians and enlightened officers realized the impossibility of "winning" they were often muted in their opposition. We like to think we will always win. We are the best, the most professional, most well-equipped military force the world has ever known. How could we lose? To a bunch of ragtag insurgents with flip flops and rusty AK-47s? More to the point, who was willing to say openly that we might? The movie describes a series of commanders each believing (some more than others) that he had the solutions for winning that his predecessors did not. The scenes where the officer talks to the Afghan people about our desire to "liberate" them I found particularly gut wrenching. The Afghan people thought they were free. Who were these alien, Christian invaders to tell them they were there to help them as they smashed around the country destroying villages and killing (accidently for the most part) civilians? This is not black humor. It is too sad for that. The scene in Karzai's bedroom where the general, while demanding the Afghan President authorize an offensive that was hours away from starting while at the same time telling him that the United States did not want to be shown as an occupying power and that he, Karzai had some real authority was another painful look at the reality of our involvement there. This movie merely states the blindingly obvious, but that doesn't seem to be understood by a new set of politicians and generals who believe that with a few more troops and more intelligent use of the COIN manual, victory will be ours. Sadly it will not win any new "hearts and minds".