“We can’t help them and kill them at the same time,” War satire is a good cocktail of been a solid movie and when Brad Pitt‘s character spits out that opening line, you know it’s gonna be an absurd crazy ride. In David Michod‘s (Animal Kingdom) War Machine A film for our times, this absurdist tale and pitch-black war story take on hot-shot General Glenn McMahon, a man caught up in a modern war machine that keeps on churning, seemingly to no end. Netflix has sent us the movie’s official trailer, now gather your troops and pay attention…
In a film for our times, writer-director David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) recreates a U.S. General’s roller-coaster rise and fall as part reality, part savage parody – raising the spectre of just where the line between them lies today. He is an anti-establishment, pro-soldier exploration in the form of an absurdist war story of a born leader’s ultra-confident march right into the dark heart of folly. At the story’s core is Brad Pitt’s sly take on a successful, charismatic four-star general who leapt in like a rock star to command NATO forces in Afghanistan, only to be taken down by his own hubris and a journalist’s no-holds-barred expose. War Machine addresses the debt we owe to soldiers to question the purposes to which they are being directed.
The opening line of this movie certainly sets up the tone of the movie, but to say it’s a flat out comedy, we can’t at this stage. Pitt is no stranger to satire with Big Short his most recent and Fury, Allied, Inglorious Basterds when it comes to war based movies. When it comes ‘cleaning up the mess’ of Bush Junior the world is your oyster but does General McMahon actually do anything different?
War Machine will be released globally including UK&Ireland 26th May. Starring a cast of many: Emory Cohen, RJ Cyler, Topher Grace, Anthony Michael Hall, Anthony Hayes, John Magaro, Scoot McNairy, Will Poulter, Alan Ruck, Lakeith Stanfield, Josh Stewart, Meg Tilly, Tilda Swinton and Sir Ben Kingsley.
