Review: War on Everyone

A ramshackle hybrid of The French Connection and Starsky and Hutch (the film, not the television series), War on Everyone marks John Michael McDonagh's third outing as writer and director and first foray in setting his typically colourful characters on American soil. It's an enjoyable enough affair steeped in his characteristically coal-black humour, but effort is soon required to maintain interest in its shambolic narrative.

With its 1970s aesthetic and Glen Campbell-heavy soundtrack, one would be forgiven for thinking this a somewhat retro satire of contemporary police corruption and bad behaviour. McDonagh is clearly enamoured with New Mexico detectives Bob Bolano (Michael Peña) and Terry Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård), dressing them in sharp suits and having them drive around in a Monte Carlo coupe, dispensing their own brand of justice to the lowlifes that try to muscle in on their turf. Hard-drinking Terry and cocaine-snorting Bob have no damns to give. "If you hit a mime, does he make a sound?" Bob wonders during the film's opening chase. To give Bob a definitive answer, Terry slams their car into the drug-carrying mime in question...after the mime has already stopped running and raised his hands in surrender.

There's a plot hiding somewhere in War on Everyone, though it seems to be buried under McDonagh's bottomless barrage of throwaway insults and slurs. "Are you an actor? Because they all seem to be dyslexic nowadays," Bob asks African-American Muslim convert Reggie X (Malcolm Barrett), who they feel is pivotal in helping them steal a whole lot of dough from the bank robbery that's about to be committed by the dastardly British aristocrat James Mangan (Theo James) and his crew, which includes his sniveling dandy of a sidekick Birdwell (Caleb Landry Jones). Along the way, the lonely Terry finds romance with ex-stripper Jackie (Tessa Thompson) and McDonagh also throws in a detour to Iceland because...sure, why not?

McDonagh obviously has a Tarantinoesque talent for wordplay that mixes the highbrow with the lowbrow. The monologues are overstuffed with references to Greek mythology, Simone de Beauvoir, Diaghilev, Andrew Wyeth, Joseph Conrad, and Vincent Van Gogh. Director Steven Sodebergh and his Out of Sight are namechecked, which may be a misstep on McDonagh's part since War on Everyone at times resembles a simulation of Sodebergh's more substantial and superior take on this genre.

There are strikingly graphic and spatial compositions courtesy of cinematographer Bobby Bukowski and an appropriately sleazy chic production design by Wynn Thomas. The climactic bloodbath is ably executed, but is predictable and derivative. James proves he's a far more talented performer than his appearances in the Divergent film series would suggest. His blithely casual dismissal of his daughters' belief of heaven - "When you're dead, you're dead. It's just darkness forever. Now run along and play." - is an especial highlight. Peña and Skarsgård are a tremendously charismatic pair as are Skarsgård and Thompson (the latter pair share a dance to Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy," a sequence that is as pleasurable as it is pointless), yet none of these actors can overcome the fact that the film doesn't really add up to much and that it hardly ever varies in tone.

War on Everyone

Directed by: John Michael McDonagh

Written by: John Michael McDonagh

Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Peña, Tessa Thompson, Theo James, Paul Reiser, Caleb Landry Jones, Michael Barrettt, Stephanie Sigman