Trivial Matters

I rented War, Inc yesterday. I was hoping to trade Disc 1 of The Unit (Season 3) for Disc 2, but my local Blockbuster didn’t have it in stock. I should have gone with something on my “classics” list, but this movie caught my attention. I remember reading about it months ago on AICN, where someone described it as a “sequel” to Grosse Pointe Blank (which is in my top 10 of all time). It must have been in theaters for all of an hour because I certainly don’t remember seeing it there. Perhaps it was released during one of my training exercises, but who knows.

To say that this is a “sequel” is to really be stretching it. Yeah, John Cusack plays a high-demand assassin, and he even has his sister as his assistant again, but this is really more like a Bizzaro-World version of GPB. Cusack plays Hauser, a hit-man hired by a giant corporation to assassinate the leader of a third-world country. His cover is to be running a corporate expo-slash-wedding. He meets a reporter, discovers a family secret, and flies off into the sunset.

Overall, it was an ok movie. I think it tried too hard in the corporate-future department. (The scene where he goes into Popeye’s to meet with the Viceroy makes no sense to me.) The twist at the end was as surprising as it was unbelievable. I’d say the one good thing about it was Hillary Duff as the bride/pop star. I didn’t even realize it was her, until the credits, between the dark hair and the accent. But even she gets a little over the top at times.

I have to wonder if the similarities were intentional. Cusack has a writing credit on both movies, but that’s the only similarity there. Here’s the rest of the similarities I found (spoilers)…

The only change really is in the setting and Cusack’s past. Grosse Pointe Blank is by far the better movie, though.

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