How to Sell a War

When was the war a comedy? Dozens of Georgian civilians died in 2008, Russo-Georgian war, and dozen Georgians had to flee their homes. Movie is a lowest of lowest.

Normally I would agree the premise of this movie is absolutely ridiculous to a normal person. However, I'm not a normal person: I flew combat missions in Vietnam. Flew for the DEA in Guatemala and Columbia during the Pablo Escobar years, flew for the U. S. D. O. S. Between Israel and Egypt, flew for the U. N. in the West Sahara ( Minurso), flew for the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Defense and Aviation, etc. Everything here is plausible. We lost the Vietnam War to a Liberal media and now that Social media is wagging the tail of the dog in current events. Remember that of the two incidents that started the Vietnam War, one was entirely made up. I'm just sayin'.

So about the actors: Jay Pharoah probably figured out after about an hour on the set that what he needs to do is just put all his energy into portraying his character to every ridiculous extreme. I think he does this well, keeping in mind that this is a parody, and thus over-the-top is not only allowed, it's certain. Katherine Parkinson has got a great body and I'm glad we get to see it to some degree. There are a number of women who have had children that look wonderful. Congrats to her for being one of them (and to the directors/producers for getting that into the film). I was a bit surprised by Lily Newmark. Most models have pretty much only that skill and nothing else to fall back on, which is fine if you can make a living on that. However she demonstrated some useful physical comedic skills. She might just actually have a bit of a future once people get tired of taking pictures of her. Not predicting she will ever be a huge celebrity. But I could see her eventually doing more movies at this level for some years to come. ** Spoilers ** The movie wasn't written to be serious, though there were some undertones heavily alluded to. The way people can swiftly be 'influenced' online to believe something, no matter how reality or all sorts of easily verifiable facts demonstrate otherwise. There is not even a millisecond of preaching, so don't worry. The big 'I'm you're mother' reveal surprises exactly noone. The actresses even naturally look like each other in real life. Same height, same hair - I seriously wondered if they were genuinely related. There were some prop issues in the film that kind of stand out. No need to list them here, but the (very humurous) scene where the ladies cut their binds really should have had them throwing their freshly cut ropes to the side afterword. It seems small, but it gets really glaring, especially when you throw in the 'guns' and 'explosions' and 'military uniforms' and other little prop things I said I wouldn't list. The movie flows naturally and logically with no twists. People will probably complain about the acting, but in fairness, there is just nothing about this movie that would really challenge any actor to show what they've got. It's no Blazing Saddles nor will it ever be any sort of cult favorite, and I already knew this as it was practically released direct to DVD/streaming/cable. A fluffy ham-it-up parody was my expectation, and in my opinion, the acting and script lived up to that just as much as they needed to. ** End spoilers ** If you're prepared to go along with some silly little leaps of faith, and open to a few easily won laughs, you'll be entertained for an hour or so, and will move on, perhaps with a smile on your face.

Kudos to Tim Price and Raid Sabbah. This a great piece of British, low key humour. I guess if you don't get the humour as a guy, you were too busy wanting to see guns and cleavage. As a woman, it's clear this movie is held down by two beautiful women (Katherine Parkinson and Lily Newmark). This movie was well written, VERY funny even though the jokes are subtle. Acting is at a high level, it's not the best movie of the year, but possibly the best budget movie of the year. Ultimately I think this movie is closet satire, happy to laugh at everything including it's own production levels. It's sincere, and it's worth keeping an open mind to anything these writers are working on...