Audiences haven't shown up for the superserious War on Terror movies. So you can't blame the folks behind "War, Inc." for trying to make a funny one.

You can blame them for not succeeding, though.

Not dumb and definitely bold, "War, Inc." is too shrill and nervous to really hit its political targets effectively. The humor's dominant tone is curdled, when it needs to be wickedly caustic.

The brainchild of producer-star John Cusack and two other writers, novelist Mark Leyner ("Et Tu, Babe") and Oscar nominee Jeremy Pikser ("Bulworth"), "War, Inc." shoots for a big, "Dr. Strangelove" picture. Appropriate enough, but what made Kubrick's film the genre's masterpiece was its keen instinct for its subject's most resonant absurdities. That, and the jokes were really funny. "War, Inc." rarely does either right.

Reviving his neurotic hit man schtick from "Grosse Pointe Blank," Cusack plays Hauser, who's latest assignment is to take out a Middle Eastern oil minister named - can you stand it? - Omar Sharif. Seems Sharif wants to build his own pipeline through the fictional Central Asian nation of Turaqistan. Tamerline, an American corporation run by a Cheneylike ex-vice president (Dan Aykroyd), has invaded the country with its own army, and reckons that gives it sole right to the country's resources.

Hauser's cover is as a Tamerlane exec in charge of a big trade show, the centerpiece of which will be the wedding of local pop tart Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff with an indeterminate accent and live scorpions in her low-ride pants). As corporate malfeasance and terrorist shenanigans mount, Hauser develops a political consciousness. Marisa Tomei plays a liberal American journalist whom Hauser kind of falls for; she's good at getting taken hostage. Joan Cusack explores the outer reaches of apoplexy as Hauser's Tamerlane liaison. Ben Knigsley is ... well, weird as ever.

Director Joshua Seftel, whose background is primarily in documentaries, tackles quite a lot in his feature film debut - everything, more or less, that's wrong pop and corporate culture, along with all that stuff that keeps screwing up between us and the Muslim world. Little surprise, then, that so much of "War, Inc." seems out of control. And not in a way that illuminates bungled policies; it just resembles them.

WAR, INC. 
R: violence, sex, nudity, language.
Starring: John Cusack, Marisa Tomei, Hilary Duff, Joan Cusack, Ben Kingsley.
Director: Joshua Seftel.
Running time: 1 hr 47 min.
Playing: Landmark, West L.A.
In a nutshell: Scattershot satire of everything we're doing wrong in occupied Islamic countries. A mess with a few observant moments.