GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

xx All of Us
53 Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
57 Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, The
64 Appaloosa
69 Ashes of Time Redux
68 August Evening
xx B.O.H.I.C.A.
62 Baghead
84 Ballast
54 Battle in Seattle
xx Beer for My Horses
75 Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
xx Billy: The Early Years
66 Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
56 Bottle Shock
55 Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
50 Breakfast with Scot
61 Brick Lane
43 Call and Response
62 Changeling
49 Children of Huang Shi, The
47 Choke
46 Choose Connor
84 Christmas Tale, A
41 Cthulhu
81 Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
xx Dostana
62 Duchess, The
46 Dukes, The
63 Eden
xx Eden Lake
66 Elegy
46 Elephant King, The
80 Encounters at the End of the World
26 Everybody Wants to Be Italian
64 Fall, The
69 Fear(s) of the Dark
26 Filth and Wisdom
28 Fireproof
52 First Basket, The
67 Flow: For Love of Water
37 Forever Strong
69 Frontrunners
82 Frozen River
43 Gardens of the Night
73 Girl Cut in Two, A
73 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
54 Good Dick
30 Guitar, The
84 Happy-Go-Lucky
44 Henry Poole is Here
31 Hounddog
27 House of the Sleeping Beauties
47 How About You
54 Humboldt County
72 I Served the King of England
70 I.O.U.S. A
40 Igor
64 In Search of a Midnight Kiss
78 I've Loved You So Long
63 JCVD
41 Johnny Got His Gun
xx Just Buried
62 Kabluey
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
25 Lake City
78 Last Mistress, The
81 Let the Right One In
xx Lower Learning
63 Man Named Pearl, A
89 Man on Wire
xx Mary
xx Matador, The
62 Mister Foe
84 Momma's Man
51 Morning Light
79 Moving Midway
33 My Name Is Bruce
59 Nights and Weekends
73 Obscene
40 Other End of the Line, The
34 Otto; or Up with Dead People
40 Passengers
xx Phoebe in Wonderland
55 Ping Pong Playa
75 Pool, The
77 Pray the Devil Back to Hell
82 Rachel Getting Married
56 Religulous
32 Repo! The Genetic Opera
xx Roadside Romeo
53 RocknRolla
56 Save Me
74 Secret, A
45 Shoot on Sight
57 Sixty Six
85 Slumdog Millionaire
56 Special
58 Splinter
79 Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
67 Synecdoche, New York
82 Tell No One
64 Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
57 Towelhead
72 Transsiberian
83 Trouble the Water
43 Tru Loved
83 U2 3D
61 Universe of Keith Haring
84 Up the Yangtze
52 Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived
79 Visitor, The
61 Wackness, The
59 We Are Wizards
55 What Just Happened?
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

War, Inc.
First Look Studios

War, Inc. reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 37 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.1 out of 10
based on 21 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 22 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for violence, language and brief sexual material

Starring John Cusack, Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Joan Cusack, Ben Kingsley, and Dan Aykroyd

War, Inc. is a political satire set in Turaqistan, a country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former U.S. Vice President. In an effort to monopolize the opportunities the warn-torn nation offers, the corporations CEO hires Hauser , a hit man, to kill a Middle Eastern oil minister. Now, struggling with his own growing demons, the assassin must pose as the corporation’s Trade Show Producer in order to pull off this latest hit, while maintaining his cover by organizing the high-profile wedding of Yonica Babyyeah, an outrageous Central Asian pop star and keeping a sexy left-wing reporter in check. (First Look Studios)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Comedy  |  Crime  |  Drama  |  Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: John Cusack
Jeremy Pikser
Mark Leyner
 
DIRECTED BY: Joshua Seftel  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: October 14, 2008 
Theatrical: May 23, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
It's a bewildering mix of very smart and very dumb, but the cast, which also features a hilarious Joan Cusack, Ben Kingsley, Marisa Tomei, Dan Aykroyd as the Cheney-esque ex-vice president, and Hilary Duff as a Turaqistan airhead pop star, is tiptop.
Read Full Review
70
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Like so many satires in the Strangelove mold, this never comes close to working as a story, but its lampoon of U.S. imperialism and military privatization is so bracingly obnoxious I didn't really care.
Read Full Review
67
Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
Comes up with some decent jokes, including a talking car-based GPS system which doubles as a therapist, and a suggestive Yonica number titled "I Want to Blow You Up," but fails to surround them with a compelling story or characters who rise above the level of cliche.
Read Full Review
63
USA Today Claudia Puig
Screwball, vaguely futuristic political satires are a rare hybrid, and War, Inc. is an intriguing, if flawed, example.
Read Full Review
63
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
This script bumps along, good ideas jostling with weak, derivative ones, and Seftel doesn't seem to know which way he wants to handle the material. Also, with Cusack playing yet another soul-fried wiseacre running on emotional autopilot, the piece doesn't have much of an engine.
Read Full Review
60
Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
Somehow, what starts as a series of cheap shots in a barrel develops into something more, thanks largely to warm, engaging performances by Cusack and Tomei. War, Inc. is both right-on and somehow off, but it gets points for trying.
Read Full Review
50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White
Its comedy too often blunders into meaningless slapstick, with bombs and bloodshed replacing pratfalls and pies in the face.
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
A brave and ambitious but chaotic attempt at political satire.
Read Full Review
50
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The trouble with this satirical take US involvement in Iraq, penned by Mark Leyner, John Cusack and Jeremy Pikser, is that the real thing is equally absurd and only marginally less funny.
Read Full Review
40
New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Has TOO much happening, which befits a comedy with a lot of targets but ultimately makes the whole operation scattershot.
Read Full Review
40
The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
The ambitions and intentions of War, Inc., co-written by and starring John Cusack, are laudable, but the film is a nearly complete misfire.
Read Full Review
40
Variety John Anderson
A blackly comic take on the first totally outsourced war? We're too close to being in one right now, which makes this John Cusack vehicle too close for comfort. It's also so close to being funny you can just about taste it -- just about.
Read Full Review
40
LA Weekly Aaron Hillis
Antiwar, anti-Bush, anti-corporate, yet neither as progressive nor half as funny as the "Harold and Kumar" sequel, War, Inc. squanders some top-tier talent (Marisa Tomei, Sir Ben Kingsley) as well as our patience.
Read Full Review
38
Boston Globe Ty Burr
All that's missing is coherence. Call it Blunderbuss Satire.
Read Full Review
30
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
A film that, in attempting to ridicule the Bush administration, finally just settles for being ridiculous itself.
Read Full Review
30
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
War, Inc. is neither all that interesting nor all that cool.
Read Full Review
30
The New York Times Stephen Holden
War, Inc. is gonzo moviemaking with a bleeding heart. A satirical farce that wants to be "Dr. Strangelove" for the age of terrorism, it is a zany, nihilistic free-for-all that goes soft.
Read Full Review
25
The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
The overall experience is manic, juvenile, and hit-or-miss, as if the auteurs behind "Epic Movie" were trying to remake "Wag The Dog." It's too soon to laugh about Iraq, and it'll never be time to laugh about it with this kind of maladroit humor.
Read Full Review
25
San Francisco Chronicle Reyhan Harmanci
Misfires so severely that even the clever details get obliterated in the resulting mess.
Read Full Review
20
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Sorry excuse for political satire.
Read Full Review
12
New York Post Lou Lumenick
The movie has two modes - very loud and extremely loud - and all of the actors are encouraged to mug their hearts out. That even includes Cusack's real-life sister Joan, normally one of the most reliable performers in the business.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 22 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Earl V. gave it a9:
Based on the critic's reviews, I went into this expecting a train wreck, but I just didn't see it. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie -- intelligently written, with a sense of fun despite how closely it reflects our present situation. Not the kind of thing the corporate media wants to encourage, apparently.

Jordan S. gave it an8:
Spaceballs meets Lord of War. If you like stupid, Mel Brooks-style humor, and you want to see Hillary Duff seductively put a scorpion down her pants (and honestly, who doesn't?) then go see this film. It's not perfect, but its definitely entertaining.

Shenanigans Padunkadunk gave it a10:
I LOVED this big fat satire n EVERYTHING stupid that's American! The critics are cry babies that take WAYYY too much shite wayyyy too serious, and THAT'S the point.

Martin S. gave it an8:
Hilarious. But I can imagine why it comes off badly in the US press. "Boom Boom Boom - there´s a war going on".

Janet B. gave it a10:
kick butt movie, should be everywhere... not fair that indies don't make it and hollywood does.

Ana gave it a9:
A very good movie. Truly funny and the cast is great, especially Hilary Duff as Yonica Babyyeah, who finally proves she's an actress. The ending is suprising and the whole movie is very original and unique. I have to recommend it.

J S gave it a5:
Take Cussack's character from Grosse Point Blank, mix in an absurdely reduced, satirical (but not funny) view of the Iraq war and sprinkle with a weak, predictable plot and you have War Inc.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: MLB | Spore | iPhone 3G | Paris Hilton | Antivirus Software | GPS | Recipes | Shwayze | NFL

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2008 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use