War, Inc. (2008)

A political satire set in Turaqistan, a country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former US Vice-President. In an effort to monopolize the opportunities the war-torn ... See full summary »

Director:

Joshua Seftel

Writers:

Mark Leyner, Jeremy Pikser,

Stars:

John Cusack, Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
John Cusack	...	Hauser
Hilary Duff	...	Yonica Babyyeah
Marisa Tomei	...	Natalie Hegalhuzen
Joan Cusack	...	Marsha Dillon
Dan Aykroyd	...	Mr. Vice President
Sergej Trifunovic	...	Ooq-Mi-Fay Taqnufmini
Ned Bellamy	...	Ooq-Yu-Fay Taqnufmini / Zubleh
John McLaughlin	...	Himself
Montel Williams	...	GuideStar Voice (voice)
Ben Kingsley	...	Walken / The Viceroy
Lyubomir Neikov	...	Omar Sharif (as Lubomir Neikov)
Nikolay Stanoev	...	Bhodi Bhundhang (as Nikolai Stanoev)
George Zlatarev	...	Director (as Georgi Zlatarev)
Bashar Rahal	...	Video Guy #1
Velislav Pavlov	...	Video Guy #2 (as Vesilav Pavlov)

Storyline

A political satire set in Turaqistan, a country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former US Vice-President. In an effort to monopolize the opportunities the war-torn nation offers, the corporation's CEO hires a troubled hit man, to kill a Middle East 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 Middle Eastern pop star, and keeping a sexy left wing reporter in check.

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Plot Keywords:

corporation | reporter | assassin | pop star | satire | 

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Taglines:

When it comes to war...America means business

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence, language and brief sexual material

Details

Official Sites:

MySpace

Country:

USA

Language:

English Hungarian

Release Date:

4 September 2008 (Israel)

Also Known As:

Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens

Filming Locations:

New Boyana Film Studios, Sofia, Bulgaria

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$45,714 (USA) (23 May 2008)

Gross:

$578,527 (USA) (1 August 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

New Crime Productions, B & W Films, Boyana Film Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

107 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The corporation, Tamerlane, refers to Timur, known in the West as Tamerlane. Timur conquered a great deal of central and western Asia in the 14th Century and founded the Timurid Empire and Timurid dynasty.

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Goofs

In the flashback, when Ben Kingsley's character aims his two guns at John Cusack's character in the garbage truck, he is holding his two guns with the two point fingers at the trigger. But when the camera switches, the left arm's finger isn't on the trigger anymore.

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Quotes

Brand Hauser: Did you know that the word "person" comes from the Latin word "persona", which means mask? So maybe being human means we invite spectators to ponder what lies behind. Each of us will be composed of a variety of masks, and if we can see behind the mask, we would get a burst of clarity. And if that flame was bright enough, that's when we fall in love. What's your opinion on these divine matters?
Natalie Hegalhuzen: I'm not going to fuck you. You know that, right?

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Crazy Credits

BeTolerant.com is listed twice in the thanks section of the credits, despite this resulting in an odd number of entries and causing the last entry to have to go against the rest of the layout (centered, vs two-column) to keep things even.

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Connections

References Happy Days (1974)

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Soundtracks

"Get Down Moses"
Written by Joe Strummer, Scott Shields, Martin Slattery and Simon Stafford
Performed by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros (as Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros)
Published by Songs of Universal Inc (ASCAP) / Sony/ATV Tunes LLC (BMI) obo Sony/ATV Music Publishing UK Ltd (PRS)/Beautiful Songs obo Reverb 3 Music (PRS)
Courtesy of Hellcat Records, a division of Epitaph

User Reviews

Very, Very Good, and Very, Very Funny

On this 4th of July weekend it's heartening to see the spirit of the Declaration of Independence alive and well in the film "War, Inc." Just as our founding fathers gave the back of their collective hand to King George III, this film exposes in hilarious fashion the craven war-profiteering by the current crop of capitalistic creeps who are intent on indecently privatizing the government, to include privatizing war itself.

The cast in this satire absolutely shines. John Cusack is wonderful as a droll, conflicted corporate assassin, and the beautiful Marisa Tomei is superb as his love interest. (My gosh, "George Costanza" was right. Marisa Tomei is so attractive!) But it is John's sister Joan Cusack who really steals the film. Her portrayal of a bossy, yet simultaneously sycophantic, personal assistant is priceless, and more than once I just couldn't stop laughing at the brilliance of her performance. She not only possesses fantastic comic timing, her face is as expressive as one could ever wish for in an actor. Dan Ackroyd, too, has a short, but very effective, cameo in the film as the head of the company which is running the war, the Tamerlane Corporation. Sitting on a "throne" with his pants down around his ankles, Ackroyd even looks like the arse clown who currently occupies one of our real thrones of power. You won't have to think too hard to recognize that person. Much of this movie was filmed in Bulgaria, which is why we are able to see so much real military equipment. (You just know that the US military would never have cooperated in making this satiric expose of war-profiteering.) I especially enjoyed the character of "Omar Sharif" as played by the Bulgarian actor Lyubomir Neikov. In one scene in which he is on the dance floor with Marisa Tomei he has a couple of lines that could summarize our entire foreign policy attitude toward the foreign leaders we install - and uninstall - in power.

Naturally, this film won't appeal to everyone. If you believe that the on-going privatization of our foreign policy, the military, intelligence collection and analysis, prisons and the corrections system, public health, and a myriad of other government services is a good thing you may not find much to like in this film. If you believe, however, that destroying people and countries in order to add to some corporation's bottom line is an abomination I think you'll find much to appreciate in this film. Nothing could be more in keeping with the Spirit of Independence that heaping well-deserved ridicule on corrupt powers that be.