The War Effort

I saw this movie at the Sundance Film Festival last month and I can't remember laughing this much at a movie in a long time. Mainly because the cast and crew spoke the truth about all the flag-o-philes and patriots who came out of the woodworks after 9/11. The movie was clearly made on a low budget, but that didn't limit the comedy at all. There were so many layers to the satire, I'd be hard pressed to list them here. But I imagine that this film will be the M*A*S*H of the war on terrorism. Bravo to all involved and if you can catch this at another festival, I urge you to do so.

This movie was a highly creative work... the nutcases portrayed in the piece were well done. A personal highlight for me were the poor pets of these people, who were dressed in some scenes based on the fanatical behaviors of their owners. Robbie and Roy (a patriotic gay couple) were a riot. The music was original and fit the tone of the movie well.

I saw this film at the Nodance Film Festival over the weekend. Overall, it was very funny and a good concept. I would compare it to the mocumentary style of Dog Show and Waiting for Guffman.

My negatives were that the acting was uneven and the movie needed to be shortened by 10-20 minutes. There were a couple of times where my feeling was "okay, we get the joke already."

But I thought the movie was good overall, and Robbie and Roy were hilarious!

In contrast to the other viewer's comments, I was ecstatic after viewing "The War Effort" and felt quite lucky to see it. Similar to the uncanny characters of Christopher Guest's movies ("Best in Show", "Waiting for Guffman", "Mighty Wind") and political sprite of Michael Moore, "The War Effort" captures a group of eccentric middle-America patriotic citizens. The entire movie was improvised superbly. The ending has some unfortunate over the top moments, and some scenes may drag on a little too long, but overall the realness of these characters and their follies is funny and non-stop entertaining.

I had the displeasure of seeing this movie at the Sundance Film Festival, and my sole purpose of writing this comment is to prevent any sane person from seeing it as well.

When I heard of the premise about a mockumentary about the new-found patriotism everybody seemed to have after 9-11, I was definitely looking forward to The War Effort. After almost two hours of poorly done homosexual-dildo jokes (as if they could be done in good taste), horrible improvised "acting" performances, and overall immature storyline, I am questioning how this movie could even have been produced in the first place.

Perhaps I am being too harsh. If you would like to see a movie that looks to be made by a team of middle-school kids, by all means, enjoy the show!