As Defamer’s sum-up points out, Jon Cusack‘s War, Inc. has gone into the tank after showing at the Tribeca Film Festival. Reviews from N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick, Spoutblog‘s Karina Longworth and the Hollywood Reporter‘s Frank Sheck are viewable for all to see. But HE reader Joseph Kay has something interesting to say besides.

Jon Cusack, Joan Cusack in War, Inc.

“Apologies if you’ve covered/couldn’t care less about this, but John Cusack’s War, Inc. silently crept into theaters here in Toronto this week, and I believe nowhere else,” he writes. “The reason for the stealth, I’m guessing, having seen the film last night, is that it’s pretty much an unmitigated disaster, messy and all-over-the-place and largely nonsensical
“But it does have a point-of-view (albeit very on-the-nose) and in a world where every third major release is seemingly about the romantic chemistry generated by the metaphor of street dancing, at least Cusack and his partners were trying to do something interesting and different.
“The big problem is they were shooting for the darkly comic impact of Dr. Strangelove, obviously an impossible target for anybody except maybe Charlie Kaufman, and also the film is very weirdly grafted onto the template for Grosse Point Blank , a strange decision which seems to have the mutual effect of hurting War, Inc. while you watch it and Grosse Point retroactively.”