A Perfect Day

The wild, the unknown, a war torn zone suffering the ravages of ethnocentric sterility walking the line between recovery and recidivism as peace talks rapidly progress.

A simple plan to find some rope and remove a dead body from a well, thereby providing the thirsty local populace with a free water supply, is bogged down in bureaucratic constipation while an independent team asserts their variability.

Mines, prejudices, flags, haunting uncertainties destabilizing the region.

But some citizens still know how to laugh.

Which influences A Perfect Day too seriously, as it comes across more like a buddy comedy than an illustration of bitter violence, like an episode from the 10th season of M*A*S*H, or friends sitting around a campfire having happy-go-lucky conversations while war pejoratively rages.

I like the characters, the situations, notably the cows who know how to navigate around land mines, but the hokey dialogue and purposive posturing (there's always a point someone's trying to make) wears thin after 15 minutes, or seconds, depending on your capacity to forgive.

It does stick it to overarching pretensions and legalistic technicalities that prevent people from doing simple things to achieve important goals, too many by-the-book applications occasionally hindering generally progressive initiatives.

But it's too much like The Monuments Men or what I imagine Whiskey Tango Foxtrot will be like (best title I've seen in years), local horrors eclipsed by cute and cuddly outsider shenanigans insufficiently solemnizing the inherent gravity of conflict, like showing up to play in the NFL without wearing pads, a warm fuzzy giraffe, not an omnivorous black bear.