I almost skipped this one as a political annoyance until I saw the star power supporting it: Ben Kingsley, Marisa Tomei (a personal favorite), John Cusack, Joan Cusack, and more. That cast simply won't let a movie be bad. They couldn't if they tried.
Despite an apparent attempt to be ordinary entertainment, this one rises above all the usual categories. Do you want a cynical mockumentary of Haliburton-style war profiteering? Got it. Do you want pointed jabs at operations funded by Congress's "black budget?" Check. Do you want satirical assaults on simplistic sloganeering from every possible direction? It's there. Add in a babe like a pre-meltdown Britney but with hotter hotpants and a bucket of slapstick, and you're headed in the right direction. For example, a major character's name is "Uckmee Fay." Speakers of pig-Latin, please take note.
They set the tone from the very first scene. Chevy Chase delivers a "Mission Impossible" style of assignment to a high-class assassin, via video, while seated on American Standard's finest. Later, Joan Cusack shows up in the role that she has perfected - the prim, cheery, and murderous psychopath. There's a lot more, too. I laughed all through, even (maybe especially) when I knew that outrage would have been the "appropriate" response.
This one really grows on me the more I think about it. It doesn't whap you upside the head with humor, politics, or even its sappy moments. Instead, it tickles you with not-quite-too-much of social commentary, current events, goofy jokes, visual gags, and enough more to hold it all together. I liked it more a few hours later than when I walked out the door, and lots of movies have the opposite effect on me.
-- wiredweird, reviewing the theatrical release
PS: See it some time soon. The topical humor in this one might age badly unless the The Powers That Be keep providing background to preserve its freshness.
