Besides its grating smugness, the picture pummels you with its political points until you want to kick it in the shin. There are a few laughs and a lot of embarrassing moments.

Surrounded by sententiousness and self-preening, Marisa Tomei manages to play a skeptical journalist with easy charm, but her efforts are doomed by the movie's ceaseless barrage of dumb bombs.

Despite flashes of comic inspiration and an abundance of anything-goes boldness, this well-intentioned but wobbly satire is a chaotic free-fire zone.

At its best, War, Inc. reaches the level of a biting-and courageous-political satire.