Directed by: Joshua Seftel
Written by: Jeremy Pikser, Mark Leyner and John Cusack
Starring: John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Marisa Tomei, Hilary Duff, Ben Kingsley and Dan Aykroyd

The gist: A government assassin is sent to a Middle-Eastern warzone where he is assigned to kill a rogue leader while posing as a chaperone for an Arab pop star.

When I had first seen the trailer for War, Inc., I was actually quite intrigued. It gave me the sense of a grown-up, political  parody a la the old Mel Brooks/David Zucker comedies of the 70s and 80s. What better idea than to take our current political and military situation in the Middle East, that of a war basically run by corporations, and just take it to the ridiculous extreme?

That’s the basis of War, Inc. Wars are no longer waged by countries but by government contractors who bid on “restructuring” projects, such as rebuilding roads, water systems, etc. All the tanks, Humvees, etc., in the movie proudly bare the “Tamerlane” sign, along with a few sponsors (Golden Palace, of course). Sidebar, Tamerlane is clearly the fictional Haliburton… everything was copied, right from Haliburton’s colors and design to the font. Plus, it’s run by a former Vice-President (Dan Aykroyd) who “stopped being Vice-President five months ago”, who was made up to bare similarities to Dick Cheney. Given these facts, this places the movie in 2009.

All the comedic elements are set up: the out-of-place Americanization of a fictional Mid-east town, complete with strip malls with a Panasonic store and a Popeye’s Chicken restaurant. There’s even a bit of physical comedy in the way government assassin Brand Hauser (played by John Cusack, the name itself being an element) is made to jog in time with soldiers as they march through secret halls to a secret bunker.

Unfortunately, these elements aren’t fully exploited. The story suffers from being a mix of parody comedy and political drama. Think Airplane! meets Syriana. We’ve got funny situations with funny characters (Hilary Duff plays a Mid-east pop star named Yonica Babyyeah, who is about to be married to a K-Fed-resembling and -sounding prince), but that’s the extent of the comedy… there aren’t any actual comedic situations (okay, there are a few, but they’re throwaways).

About halfway through the movie, we find our assassin caught up in his cover job, that of a show producer who is hosting Babyyeah’s wedding (which again could’ve provided more funny moments, but doesn’t), while struggling with his past as well as the moral conflict of being an government assassin assigned to kill people who haven’t really done anything (in fact he points out that any time a Central American even causes the slightest dent in the American economy, he’s sent to kill them off).

Overall, War, Inc. suffers from just not going far enough, either as a drama or a comedy. The pieces are there for both, but they’re not put together; or in some cases, they just don’t fit. The march down the secret halls I mentioned earlier was out of place given the way it was shot (in fact, there’s a 2nd time where Hauser and soldiers march down the hall, but they do not jog, leading me to wonder if the first instance was an outtake the director chose to keep in the movie). The acting is good all around, and I was impressed by Hilary Duff’s performance, I honestly didn’t expect much out of her. The only one who actually bothered me was Joan Cusack, who at times seemed to be doing the strangest things, and other times gave half-hearted performances.

Written & Directed by Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor (upcoming Game)
Starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Efren Ramirez, and Dwight Yoakam
IMDB Plot Summary: Professional assassin Chev Chelios (Statham) learns his rival (Jose Pablo Cantillo) has injected him with a poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops.

Despite the obvious parallel between this movie and Speed (i.e. the protagonist loses if something falls below a certain level), Crank actually manages to stand on its own as a movie in that you’re not always thinking “This is a rip-off of Speed.” Unfortunately, it’s those unique elements that sets Crank apart that may be its own downfall.

What we have here is the feature debut of a pair of guys whose only feature-film experience was doing special effects (and not much, to boot). I think the Speed reference and the constant use of special effects (which sometimes are awkwardly used to achieve what I assume is an accidentally comic effect), especially in the beginning of the movie, are big red flags that these guys should’ve probably let someone else write the script. The concept is great and the movie would’ve been 10 times better, albeit different, in the hands of an experienced writer.

The highlight of the movie is clearly Jason Statham, who goes the extra mile to entertain us (especially by spending maybe 15 minutes of the movie in a hospital gown, which I’m sure made him the butt of jokes between takes). Statham’s trademark dry British wit created a character that would otherwise fail had someone else done it.

I do have to give writer/directors Neveldine/Taylor props for coming up with interesting situations the characters fall into, such as Chev and his girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart) having sex in the middle of a Chinatown marketplace in order to keep Chev’s adrenaline going; unfortunately some of the other situations were either too quickly done with or didn’t have sufficient punch (like when Chev has someone shock him with a defibrillator to juice up his heart).

It’s actually rather ironic that in the bonus features, Neveldine/Taylor talk about how the movie has rest periods or otherwise the audience would get strung out from too much action. I think the movie would’ve been much better had they taken the opposite approach, as it would’ve put the audience in a similar mood as what Chev was experiencing.

Written by Stuart Bettie (Collateral, Derailed)
Directed by David Slade (Hard Candy)
Starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster, Manu Bennett
IMDB Plot summary: After an Alaskan town is plunged into darkness for a month, it is attacked by a bloodthirsty gang of vampires.

I was intrigued by reports that 30 Days of Night expanded upon the vampire genre much like 28 Days Later did with the zombie genre. And it was Halloween, so what perfect movie to watch than 30 Days? Unfortunately, it didn’t quite deliver. What I was faced with was a story that not only didn’t update vampire movies, but did little to help my suspension of disbelief.

For starters, the premise is that vampires show up in this Alaskan town where the sun goes down for 30 days. To take advantage of the darkness, the vampires knock out all electricity to the town. For some bizarre reason, it doesn’t dawn on any of the survivors to simply get into a truck and high-tail to the next town, which is only 80 miles away (an hour’s drive).

The movie then pushes me to believe that the survivors go up to a week without being attacked by the vampires (multiple times). On-screen text tells you what day it is (”Day 1″, “Day 7″, etc.). So on Day 1, the town is attacked and we have our select group of survivors (led by Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, who play the sheriff and fire marshall, respectively) who hide in someone’s attic, which is fine. But the whole town only has like 80 houses… you expect me to believe the vampires, who KNOW there are people alive, won’t tear through all the homes looking for these people?? 30 Days gives one the impression that the vampires are completely lazy and only attack people if they happen to come across them while walking around.
Suspension of disbelief aside, the film does have decent action scenes, albeit short and sparse. In fact, the best one that comes to mind is near the beginning, when a silhouetted figure jumps on top of the sheriff’s truck and viciously pummels the top of it trying to get to the people inside. The intensity and cinematography of that scene worked great.

Another problem for me was the constant shrieking the vampires induced. Whenever the vampires were grouped, or if an individual vamp was about to attack, they would let out this horrible shriek, which could’ve actually done its job of frightening the audience if it hadn’t been for the overuse of it. When grouped, the vampires would shriek all together for what seemed like 30 seconds continuously. I found myself covering my ears because it was not only getting annoying but it was giving me a headache.

Overall, the movie was a disappointment. Few scares, low on the action and somewhat disjointed. I will give props for the ending, which was done well, but doesn’t save the rest of the movie.