War Machine

Watch Movies TV -***DISCLAIMER*** The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion (or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay. 4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching! Wait, this isn't about Rhodey?

War Machine – 3 out of 5

It may sound hard to believe due to how often “based on true event films” and biopics come out and how soon they are often released following the real events but back in the early 90s the film Apollo 13 almost was never produced because the studio felt that not nearly enough time had passed since the event.  Granted, a little over two decades realistically isn’t that much time but now, thanks to that film, adaptations of real events and people are being produced seemingly immediately after the things go down.  Sometimes it is okay but in the case of the Netflix original War Machine, maybe a decade or so extra could have passed before we got a satirical look at a war that we are still dealing today.

I said, War--huh--what is it good for?
Selfies apparently.

After his exceptional work in Iraq, the boys upstairs send in four-star General Glen McMahon (Brad Pitt) to do an assessment of Afghanistan so the US government can end the war.  He’s optimistic about “winning the war” but with the exhausted soldiers, apathetic politicians and clueless others involved, “winning” might not be the easiest thing to accomplish.

Kudos to Pitt for keeping a "pinching out a fart face" for the whole movie.

War Machine is…okay.  It’s not a bad film in anyway but it is also not a great film in any aspect.  It has its highlights that are genuinely great and it has its lowlights that, while not terrible, do take away from the experience of the film.  The main killer in this one is a story that didn’t really feel that focused and didn’t flow the best.  Like I stated, this lowlight isn’t too egregious but it did make for a film that has a lot of moments that dragged.  The narrative and plot just didn’t have a flow that was able to get its hooks in me and keep me glued to the feature.  The whole story structure felt like a lot of fast goings and abrupt stoppings.

Pew Pew

The one thing this film really has working in its favor is the cast.  It is tremendously strong.  Brad Pitt is leading the charge as the interesting character of General Glen McMahon but the cast also includes Topher Grace, Ben Kingsley,  Anthony Michael Hall, Will Poulter, Lakeith Stanfield, Tilda Swinton and tons more.  All of them are fantastic in their own right and are very entertaining to watch.  The sad part is a strong and large cast isn’t enough to make up for the parts where the story got really boring for me.

"You know, I'm not entirely sure about the running status of our refrigerator
right now..."

War Machine is a satirical attempt at the mess Afghanistan was is and it works at dissecting it all.  However, the story and the pacing are major issues that harmed its overall performance for me as a viewer and I ultimately found it to be a decent watch but not one that stuck with me after the credits were over.