*** (out of 5)
by Walter G. Tarrow
“War Machine
,” an original movie showing exclusively on Netflix, stars Brad Pitt, perpetually perplexed with certainty, as General Glen McMahon, who is deployed, with his devoted entourage, to Afghanistan early in the Obama presidency and toward the end of the war.
Though he is directed by the administration very clearly and simply to clean up the mess left by his predecessor, to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans, and to install democracy, his ideals, and, unfortunately, his hubris compel him to defeat the insurgents and “win the war.”
Pitt plays the Glenimal (one of the affectionate nicknames given him by his inner circle) as ramrod straight throughout. He stands, he sits, he walks, he runs, always at attention. His interactions with all, including his wife, are deadpan serious, tentative and often painfully awkward. He is at odds with, and apart from, the reality of the international theater of that region. As one character tells him, Glen is within a bubble within a bubble of soldiers.
He is repeatedly told by all, from the Afghan President Karzai, played delightfully with a wink and a nod by Ben Kingsley, to the coalition allies to the Obama administration, not to fight a war. All others see a reality where it can’t be won (you don’t liberate a people by invading their country), but because Glen believes he is only relevant and revered when he is winning a war, this man-boy and his bros won’t quit. Even though the adults in the room keep explaining that he can’t always get his way and that not everybody, including the President, loves you.
Anthony Michael Hall stands out as Glen’s career long lapdog companion with anger management issues. Jennifer Tilley is effective as his quietly suffering wife and Tilda Swinton, in her one scene, delivers a key plot point convincingly, that innocent people should never get hurt because of your good intentions.
Narrated by a writer from the Rolling Stone, who is along for the ride, and who places the story within the big picture, War Machine, like Pitt’s portrayal, never really takes off. It is constipated, blocked from allowing the absurd to flow freely or the war to wage fiercely.
But then again, isn’t that the Afghanistan of our nation’s making?
“(you don’t liberate a people by invading their country)”, perhaps we need to ask the folks in Kuwait, Germany, Italy, France, Holland, Belgium, South Korea and a few others?