There's nothing epic about this War Story. The movie fools you into thinking it could be a great political thriller with an engrossing central character. But instead, you get a super-boring character study that gets ultra-boring after the first five minutes.
Catherine Keener plays a war photographer on a mystery mission. But that takes awhile to get going since she would rather sit in her dark hotel room, stare at her bruised back, look at the same old photos, or listen to her neighbors have sex instead of beginning act one.
The rest of the story involves Keener's character pursuing a woman she knows, but may not know, but you won't care for anyway.
I must admit there are a couple of things I didn't see coming: Ben Kingsley makes a cameo. He and Catherine chat on the couch about whether or not he will make Gandhi 2. The other surprise is that the Rich Homie Quan hip-hop song "Type of Way" is used as a motif (I'm not joking. It's played twice).
While the film does have decent acting, it's handheld shaky-cam style doesn't help set itself apart from other modern indie dramas that do the same thing. However, War Story's lack of creativity doesn't begin with its style. It starts with its title.
