Grosse

88. "War, Inc"
This 2008 Cusack written/produced/starring film only played in New York and LA. That is because it is not good. In fact, it is very far from good. It's part "Grosse Point Blank" (it stars both John Cusack as a assassin for hire, Joan Cusack as a secretary undercover and Dan Aykroyd as a boss figure), part "Idiocracy" and bad satire of war in general. It paints broad strokes but none of them make much sense. It's a failure in every sense of the word.

Mr. Cusack is sent to Turaqistan to both lead a conference of sorts for US PR and to assassinate the made up country's current leader. He falls in love with journalist Marissa Tomei, takes shots of hot sauce because he's haunted by the death of his wife and daughter and blah blah blah. It's really boring. The jokes aren't funny and the speeches are preachy. If it wasn't coming from the guy who wrote "G.P.B." and "High Fidelity" I would have turned it off within the first 20 minutes. Instead, I kept on insisting to my girlfriend that it had to get better.

Was it the direction? The acting wasn't awful. Was it the story? It never gelled. Was it the editing? Something had to go wrong.

I feel a little bad for Hillary Duff. I would sign on to a project that would appear to be "Grosse Point Blank 2".