Started to watch this on Netflix - lasted 20 minutes of so - pretty bad. Brad Pitt was embarrassingly bad - seemed like what a high school senior would do if told to play a general.

Plenty of interesting sequences, but doesn't come together. I can definitely understand the complaints about Pitt's performance, but I thought it was at least a big choice: Pitt's playing a man who's self-consciously performative about being an anachronistic good-ol'-values straight-shooter.

Lakeith Stanfield's scenes are a standout, and the film feels more at home in the second half, probably because it's more interested in beating General McMahon up than it is in drawing more out of him. There's an awkward fit between that impulse, which often leads to mere snarkiness, and the more interesting and complicated project of depicting the clash between frequently tragic reality and McMahon's wholehearted commitment to U.S. exceptionalism.

It was ambitious and it failed, but that's good enough for me.

Generally agree - in this case - especially as it related to Pitt - I could see them acting. Not a good sign