War Machine follows a sergeant called 81 (Alan Ritchson).
81 is a number assigned to him by the 75th Ranger Regiment and he will be known as 81 as long as he is under the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program (RASP), a grueling months-long training that serves as the entry gate for soldiers wanting to join the U.S. Army’s elite.
81 joining the Army Rangers is a promise he is fulfilling for his late brother who died from a Taliban attack. Even though he is a bit older, is already a well-regarded soldier, and far more experienced and decorated than the other recruits, he went through all the training, tests, and screening like any of them. And as expected, he passed all of them.
For the final trial, 81 along with another soldier called 7 (Stephan James) must lead a group of recruits on a simulated mission in the forest to destroy a classified aircraft and rescue its pilot. Even though 81 is adamant that he does not want to lead due to his PTSD, Sergeant Major Sheridan (Dennis Quaid) and First Sergeant Torres (Esai Morales) had to make him do it to measure his mental capabilities.
During the mission, the team encounters a strange-looking spacecraft. For a moment, they believe that it is the aircraft from the mission, so they strap it with grenades and blow it up. But when the smoke settles, they are shocked to see it is still in one piece.
It is here that they realize that whatever this thing is, it is alive and angry. As it towers over them, it starts blowing everything in its path. Now 81 must lead his team back to camp to keep them safe from what could only be an extraterrestrial war machine.
We can simply describe War Machine as the offspring of War of the Worlds and Predator delivered by Michael Bay. So it is soldiers, aliens, and explosions, all in one movie. Basically, it what is what every middle-aged and older dad dreams about.
To be clear, I am not calling War Machine a dad film to insult it. I am just saying that this film has a demographic and it knows it by heart. Hence, it is able to check all the requirements that make it the paragon of its kind.
One of the major requirements of a dad movie is that the story should be simple. In War Machine, you just need to sit through the first ten minutes of the film because that is all the story from our hero’s backstory to his aspiration and motivation. But even if you were not paying attention to all the whys and wherefores of the protagonist, the beauty of dad movies like this is that they will surely remind you of it along the way. Though, in my opinion, in fast-paced sci-fi action like this, I do not think it matters much to know all of it because it really does not concern a lot of things past the ten-minute mark anyway.
The real meat of the film is the fight for survival of underequipped soldiers against an otherworldly machine of destruction. Half of the film is dedicated to this no-nonsense cat-and-mouse chase, which is certainly the film’s strength. It spared us all the character backstories, the scientific mumbo jumbo, and the dramatic moments and instead plunged us straight into mayhem, explosions, and bodies flying around.
And at the very least, that is what you want from a dad film. Spectacular action. Yeah, for people to read the message on isolation, trauma, and camaraderie might be nice, but they are just bonuses in the film. The real heart of it is really underdogs beating the odds and doing it in the most chaotic way possible.
So despite a thin message and an even thinner story, I do find War Machine quite entertaining because it goes above the bare minimum required for its kind. I might not be part of the demographics it wants to aim for, but I get the appeal of the film and there’s really nothing wrong with it just wanting to see things go boom. And for a Netflix-only release, to feel just okay after the credits start to roll, not bored or annoyed, is equivalent to earning a Medal of Honor.
3/5
Now streaming on Netflix