It was revealed last August that David Michod and Brad Pitt‘s War Machine (Netflix, 5.26), a comedy-drama about the Afghanistan conflict and Gen. Stanley McChrystal (renamed Gen. Dan McMahon in the film), would not get a 2016 award-season release.

Apparently Pitt, who’s also producing War Machine, didn’t want attention divided between Allied, the World War II shortfaller that opened on 11.23, and War Machine. This, at least, was one of the considerations. Another may have been that War Machine just isn’t an award-season type of film…who knows?

The news disappointed me as War Machine, which is based on Michael Hastings‘ “The Operators“, seemed (and still seems) like it might be an edgier, more interesting film than Allied.

War Machine costars Anthony Michael Hall, Topher Grace, Will Poulter, Tilda Swinton, Jonathan Ing and Ben Kingsley.

(l.) Brad Pitt as Gen. Stanley McChrystal; (r.) McChrystal himself.

This morning’s Netflix press release describes War Machine as “an absurdist war story for our times…a born leader’s ultra-confident march right into the dark heart of folly…a U.S. General’s roller-coaster rise and fall as part reality, part savage parody — raising the specter of just where the line between them lies today…a successful, charismatic four-star general who leapt in like a rock star to command NATO forces in Afghanistan, only to be taken down by a journalist’s no-holds-barred exposé.”