Masters Dissertation Research: War Machine (2017)

For my masters dissertation I am going to be writing a biographical film script. This takes a tonne of research just to make the story as true as it can possibly be, but it also means learning about existing biopics. So I've decided to post some of my thoughts on the films I end up watching.

The first on my list was War Machine (2017) which is based on a book called The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan by Michael Hastings, and directed and written by David Michôd. It is a strange combination of comedy and war film which has a pretty strong cast, including Brad Pitt, Topher Grace, Tilda Swinton, and a host of other well-known actors.

The film starts out on a pretty light hearted note, which seemed like a strange approach to a film about the war in Afghanistan. Each of the characters fit a bit of a stereotype, and they are all introduced in a bit of an information dump very early in the story by a narrator. We later find out that the narrator is, in fact, a journalist, who is relatively important to the story. However, around an hour or so into the film the tone shifts quite dramatically, and we are thrown head-first into a hard-hitting war film. This wasn't a twist I enjoyed; it felt forced and overly dramatised compared with how it began.

Personally, this film fell a little flat. Some of it held my interest, including Brad Pitt's strange running style, and the relationships between some of the more significant characters, but there was a lot wrong with it. I found myself bored rather regularly, and didn't really think it needed to be a two hour film.

#university