Weapons of Mass Distraction

Weapons of Mass Distraction proves to be an inconsequential mess of loose plot points and unanswered questions. In what was initially supposed to be a satire, it only gets lost in it's web of lurid, superfluous, irrelevant occurrences.

Two billionares rival over ownership of a famous American football team. That's what we understand from the blurb. Unfortunately, the references to that are just so vague that it is somewhat of a sub-plot. There really is no plot. It goes nowhere!

On one end of the spectrum we have Robert Altman's fine satire "The Player", focusing on big business and movies. On the other end of the spectrum we have this.

Combine this: helicopter accident, closet gay businessman, jewish holocaust surviver, appendage enlargement, trans-gender wife and adulterous cable repairman newly fired. That's precisely what the film is!

It's awful. One out of ten.

Insomnia was acting up late one night and I started channel surfing and happened on this flick on Cinemax ... there was only about thirty minutes left of the movie but even at that point it SUCKED me right in.

It's a great flick to watch on a Sunday afternoon - watch it closely. Gabriel Byrne and Ben Kingsley are excellent. I think this was the first movie I saw Jason Lee appear in.

The multiple stories coinciding into one single story of rich scumbags tearing into other's lives for their own gain.

Illeana Douglas's character (and her husband) ... their story ... the secret histories of the rich scumbags ... a lot going on in this movie ...

HIGHLY recommend it.

The writer Larry Gelbart has to be one of the greatest talents of several generations.

Why isn't he a household name?

Check his CV - and if you're over 35 you'll have been entertained by his narrative, his humour, his wit. He's tickled you. And at the same time made you think.

That's when you should get an Oscar. When you can make someone laugh and think at the same time. That's really good writing. Really good thinking.

Thanks for being a really good thinker Larry.

I liked the fact that this satire became more and more outlandish & soap opera-esque as it continued - reading one of the other user comments, it would appear not everyone got this...

7.5/10

This movie has a brilliant, intelligent script (starting with the title!) which makes a very interesting connection between the famous Renaissance Princes and present day Media Moghuls. I will check out other movies based on scripts by Larry Gelbard as soon as I can!

Remember the Borgias, the Medicis, the Viscontis, the Sforzas and all those other guys who came from nowhere and rose up to seats of great power and founded lasting dynasties in Renaissance Italy? Those so called Condottieri were brutal and ruthless, yes, but they also furthered the arts and sciences. Maybe they did it solely for their own glory, but in the end the larger community could profit from the result. This came to my mind when I watched Weapons of Mass Distraction.

Lionel Powers and Julian Messenger are two testosterone driven characters who rose out of the gutter to establish international media empires. In the movie they are contesting for the ownership of a football team. They both don't really need it, they just have this constant urge to confirm their potency to themselves. A game of power and betrayal unfolds which becomes more wicked as it reaches deeper an deeper in to the hidden corners of different people's biographies. The electronic media is used to discredit and destroy anyone who could stand in the way of the «big boys». And no quarter is given.

Despite of all the modern gadgets, it becomes quite clear that it is a timeless story that is told here. Almost every character seems to be a reflection of court life in past centuries: there are crown princes, jesters, courtisans etc. etc. Thanks to the mass media these characters zap through real and virtual space until it is impossible to tell the one from the other and truths multiply - but all remains profoundly human.

There are direct references to the Renaissance age - to me it seems I detected gestures and postures who come out of paintings of the period. Then there is Powers' family crypt, where the big man retires to in times of distress ... The two big guys are contrasted by a small guy, a «peasant» who is at the mercy of those who wield power. His outlook on life is in its entirety conditioned by TV - but whose is not? - and you feel that Weapons of Mass Distraction is a movie about a post democratic society.

Gabriel Byrne and even more so Ben Kingsley are fabulous in the leading parts, so is Chris Mulkey who plays the «peasant» very convincingly. Also memorable are Jeffrey Tambor as the really sleazy adjutant and Paul Mazursky as the owner of a potency clinic. Ladies play second fiddle throughout but several of them are very pretty. The jokes are generally coarse but intelligent and well placed in the story. The most memorable moment is the the owner of the potency clinic explaining the different kinds of enlargments he has to offer for the male sexual organ - it's very detalled and really not very appetizing!

Friends of Architecture watch out. It seemed to me that Julian Messenger's office was installed in Louis I. Kahn's famous Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. If my guess is right, they did not use those wonderful spaces very well.