Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

pontifikator This 2008 movie hits all my buttons for a satire. Some might call it a black comedy. Directed by Joshua Seftel, it was written by Mark Leyner, Jeremy Pikser, and John Cusack. 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. The satire begins when Hauser lands there. The country is being run by an American corporation called Tamerlane. All the occupying soldiers are Tamerlane mercenaries, the equipment is owned by Tamerlane (which sells ads on the sides of its tanks, by the way), and the country basically is occupied by the corporation. Everyone gets a Tamerlane corporate gift bag, including a book entitled "How I Conquered the World and Dealt with Issues with my Father."I won't go into how well the movie nails corporate scumbaggery, occupation by corporate alter egos, and the like. It nails it. Joan Cusack is brilliant. The commercialization of the war in this godforsaken country is funny, and "War, Inc." spoofs all those dumb action movies where the action hero's wife is killed and his daughter is kidnapped: it happened to Hauser twenty years ago, and he has no clue who did it or why or where his daughter is. And he does nothing about it. Nothing. For some reason, "War, Inc." didn't get a great release and was quickly shunted to DVD. (No conspiracies here, though, about corporations censoring the movie.) It got seriously bad reviews. (Of course, there were no corporations putting the kibosh on it, making newspapers require bad reviews from their critics.) I'm not sure what the reason was. I think it's a great movie; see it with a decent sound system for all the booms.On another note, I see this movie as the final film in a Cusack trilogy. My suggestion is that it starts with "Say Anything," where Cusack is paired with Iona Skye. Dobler is a high school grad with nothing going for him. Released in 1989, in "Say Anything" our hero's goal in life is maybe to open a gym and be a kick boxer. Skye plays Dobler's love interest, Diane Court, who's the school's valedictorian on her way to college and a life of brainy success. It has that iconic scene where Dobler stands outside her window holding the boombox over his head as it plays "In Your Eyes."My alternate universe point of view is that Lloyd Dobler went from being a kick boxer to being Martin Q. Blank in "Grosse Pointe Blank." Blank, of course, is a professional assassin who goes to his high school reunion to see his old high school flame (played by Minnie Driver). In "Grosse Pointe Blank" Joan Cusack plays his totally over the top secretary, and Dan Akroyd plays another assassin. Alan Arkin plays Blank's psychiatrist, and those scenes are fabulous. Blank has been assigned a hit during the time of his reunion, and we get to see a lot of conflict as Blank meets his old friends who've led boringly normal lives while he's been killing people. In "War, Inc." Cusack plays a character named Hauser, Joan Cusack plays his totally over the top assistant, and Dan Akroyd plays a vice president. Instead of an analyst, Hauser has "GuideStar," a disembodied voice to talk him through his several problems based apparently on GM's navigation service. (Bill Cusack, brother of John and Joan, plays the "overcaffeinated" soldier delivering the dry-cleaning in "War, Inc.," by the way, and a waiter in "Grosse Pointe Blank.")

Roland E. Zwick 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. And as with many films of this type, its air of knowingness occasionally slips over into smugness. Yet, though it feels kind of slapdash and doughy at times, the movie ultimately achieves that artful mixture of the serious and the trivial that is the essence of absurdity. And the Ennio Morricone-flavored score by David Robbins gives the movie the flip, hip air it needs to be effective.Not a homerun, exactly, but at least a solid double.

gotofritz Movies like this are easy to review: absolutely rubbish with no saving grace. As a viewer you are always two steps ahead of the plot, such as it is. At least it doesn't take itself too seriously - except for the bits where someone delivers A Political Message.The acting is not so bad, except for Hilary Duff's awful accent - or should I say accentS since she keeps slipping in and out of hers. But the story goes nowhere. I agree with the anti-war sentiment behind the movie, but the execution is absolutely terrible. Too much kookiness without actually being funny. A movie that will sink without trace.

davidgreenfuturedoc This is a brilliant political satire. 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. Unfortunately, Americans don't like to hear the truth about themselves, especially when they are complicit in mass murder.