Blink too quickly and you’ll think Brad Pitt is playing Barbie’s Ken in a new film about war. Instead, he plays hot-shot General Glenn McMahon in Netflix’s parody film War Machine.
War Machine, which also stars Emory Cohen, Topher Grace, Anthony Michael Hall, Will Poulter, Lakeith Stanfield, Meg Tilly, Tilda Swinton, and Sir Ben Kingsley, is inspired by the book The Operators: The Wild & Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan. Netflix reportedly acquired the rights to the movie for $30 million, the biggest deal yet for the online streaming company.
An absurdist war story for our times, writer-director David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) recreates 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. His is an exploration of a born leader’s ultra-confident march right into the dark heart of folly. At the story’s core is Brad Pitt’s sly take on 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.
