"Kelly's Heroes" meets "Fight Club" is the shorthand for this ruthlessly funny, gleefully anarchic black comedy - the most exciting, effective anti-establishment flick since David Fincher's caustic 1999 classic.
"Life for me is about distractions," says Specialist Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix), "I try to keep looking up so I can avoid what's down." Stuck in Stuttgart, on one of the US Army's many German-based bases, he's "fighting the dull fight, nothing to kill except time", as the Cold War drags to its close in 1989.