War | filmvetter

Mike Nichols’ adaptation of Joseph Heller’s dark comic novel is energetically brisk and sometimes entertaining. Tonally, however, the film is an uneven mess, a pointless downer playing bleakness for laughs.

As the original Corporal Klinger, Alan Arkin’s Captain Yossarian is the engine of the picture, a bombardier stationed in Italy who is losing his nerve and wits. His superiors (Bob Newhart, Buck Henry, and Martin Balsam) vex him by upping the number of bombing missions necessary for a ticket home to curry favor with their commanding officer (Orson Welles). Yossarian’s fellow fliers (including Martin Sheen, Richard Benjamin, Anthony Perkins, Charles Grodin, Bob Balaban, Jon Voight, Art Garfunkel, Jack Gilford and Norman Fell ) all suffer under the same yoke, but with cheerful acceptance or apathy rather than the indignation of Arkin’s whirling dervish. How the Academy overlooked Arkin astonishes me; whatever the flaws of the picture, his commitment and on-the-edge turn requiring an actor’s entire skill set is unforgettable.

The film’s main problem is rooted in the see-sawing expanse of the endeavor. Yes, war is FUBAR, and aspects of it are both craven and bizarre. In the world of Nichols and Heller, the poor bombers are riddled with asinine and unctuous leadership, wackadoodle stir-crazy types, suicidal loons, sex-crazed fiends, one murderer, and one uber-capitalist who trades parachutes for commodities on the open market.

When played for laughs, the picture is solid, and no one is begging for verisimilitude. However, when pathos is introduced, such as truly tragic deaths of compatriots (including a particularly brutal death of a young flier) and civilians, the film feels incongruously cruel.

Worse, the picture is more than anti-war. It is anti-American, maybe even anti-everything. As nothing matters, there is no investment in the fates of anyone. A fair juxtaposition is Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H, in which the madness of the endeavor is clear but even in that madness, the professionalism of the medical staff is unquestioned and laudable, the loss of life truly sad. Nichols himself felt M*A*S*H did his picture in: “We were waylaid by MASH, which was fresher and more alive, improvisational, and funnier than Catch-22. It just cut us off at the knees.” All of which is true. But M*A*S*H also had heart and a respect for the craft of combat surgery. Here, there is no respect for anything or anyone and the characters seem more from Looney Tunes than Heller’s book.

Indeed, every hallmark of the American ethos is there for Nichols to malign. The military leaders are insecure dolts, silly and moronic, who care not a whit for the men. The fliers are chumps or burn outs, pawns in the great game, either oblivious or devious in their plans to get out and shirk. Everyone is also an automaton, caring for nothing, even each other. The goal and aim of the war, and this is World War II we are talking about, is at best corrupt and ultimately criminal, as we bomb not only towns with no military significance, but, in a perversion of capitalism, we allow the Germans to bomb our own base for profit. The Italians are victims of the Americans, just as they were victims of the Germans, because, you see, there is no difference between the two. By the end of the picture, the genius behind the corporate conglomerate, Jon Voight, is now close to full Nazi in regalia and trappings.

Hell, even parents who come to Italy to see their dying son are treated as props for a goof.

Yes, yes. None of this is to be taken literally in a “war is madness” story, and the film is a black comedy grossly overgeneralizing for the laughs. Still, it’s the kind of smart set entertainment that fairly encapsulates the philosophy of the sophisticate, a sneering besmirchment that puts the last torpedo into a sinking ship.

I wonder what Heller made of the movie’s iciness. Obviously, his book was a cynical send-up (I read it in high school, along with Vonnegut’s SlaughterHouse-Five), but Heller also flew 60 combat missions as a B-25 bombardier during the war.

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There are many many fine war films, but to a near fault, the pictures are accompanied by moving scores and dialogue that seeks to translate the madness into something articulable as a broader goal. The characters negotiate their horror, sometimes in a simplistic, overly cynical or patriotic manner, often anachronistically. A common fault is too much explication. Think Eric Bana telling Josh Hartnett in Black Hawk Down that the only thing that matters is the man next to you, after which he poetically slips away to do more of God’s work in Mogadishu. Or the often trying banter of Spielberg’s platoon, looking for Private Ryan, with their hopes and dreams too much on their sleeves. Or Charlie Sheen’s overt “what are we doing here, who am I?” voiceovers in Platoon.

Then there’s the misery and degradation in all its forms, seen on Spielberg’s Omaha Beach or in the trench hell of the most recent remake of All Quiet on the Western Front. Hamburger Hill, We Were Soldiers, Hacksaw Ridge, Flags of Our Fathers, and dozens of other combat flicks, all which show us the meat and the grinder and the indomitable or broken spirit of those who survive or die in its gears.

Warfare, directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Civil War, 28 Years Later) and Navy Seal Ray Mendoza, a veteran who served during the action depicted, is like none of these films. A platoon on a observational mission in 2006 Iraq after the Battle of Ramadi soon becomes the quarry. What ensues is a riveting recreation of their fate as they are besieged on all sides. What is revealed is a professionalism in a real time pressure cooker, less heroism than necessity. There are no speeches, no mournful strings, no hoo-rah. No soul searching or leather strap biting (well, a little, but for before morphine is administered, it is a terrible, pitched screaming).

In the place of such war film hallmarks, there is increasing tension and isolation. As the fear and confusion mount, it is met with collaboration, spine, and ingenuity, all hampered by human foible under great stress. Mistakes are made but they are almost built into the scenario and they are not dwelled upon. Terror abounds but it is revealed subtly. The soldiers, pinned down in an Iraqi home for the entirety of the film, have every weapon and gadget American fighting ingenuity can provision. They have surveillance from above, as well as the ability to call in armor or air support. Yet, the unit seems near overmatched by the persistence of their foes, which enhances a secondary threat, the possibility of panic and loss of discipline. There are no dramatic explosions, not unit uprising, no philosophical meanderings. There is hesitation, the glance of doubt, the zoning out to cope, the “are you fucking serious?” look, the nano-second wait for someone else to step up, the grudging assumption of the task when they do not, and the missteps that would occur in any such maelstrom.

There is a beautifully rendered scene where the besieged platoon is reinforced. The first platoon’s lieutenant says to his newly arrived counterpart, “I’m fucked up.” He is not injured, though concussed and disoriented, but he is spent and incapable of command. His near wordless relinquishment, met by acknowledgement, dawning and the assumption of responsibility, is poignant.

The film is really about the business of war, and the exercise of it as craft when literally and figuratively all is crashing down about you. It’s an original work of art in the genre.

I’ll add one contemporary observation. There has been much talk of late as to the physical standards necessary for combat. This film will educate you as to a basic requirement. If you can’t pull a wounded man from harm’s way, you have no business being in the business.

On MAX.

—filmvetter

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Catch-22 – 2.75 stars

Warfare – 5 stars