Civil War

4 outta 5

Writer and director Alex Garland has some fantastic movies he’s worked on (28 Days Later, Dredd, Ex Machina) although his last few efforts (Devs, Men) have been somewhat bewildering. His latest film, Civil War, is more of a straightforward urban warfare film, although the title and ads make it seem like some sort of firebrand political statement. It really isn’t. Set in a USA divided by a civil war, it doesn’t make any reference to current political parties, and the states of Texas and California have teamed up to secede, something that seems politically unlikely. It is more about the horrors that humans can inflict upon each other with modern warfare, and the need to document is. And it also has crackerjack high-tension scenes, some stunning visuals, and the last thirty minutes are fab.

Lee (Kirsten Dunst) is a photojournalist documenting a modern day American Civil War, as states fight against each other, and the last holdout is the President of the United States (Nick Offerman) who is sealed up in Washington DC. She and her fellow reporter, Joel (Wagner Moura) want to interview and photograph the President, something that their old journalist veteran friend, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) says is suicide as the President’s forces view journalists as enemy combatants. Also tagging along is an aspiring photojournalist, Jessie (Cailee Spaeny). On their road trip across a war-torn America, Jessie tries to learn to be a photojournalist even if sometimes she is too terrified to take pictures. But along the way, they run into way too many people killing other people, and they may end up getting pasted before they even make it to DC.

The characters along for the road trip to DC are thinly sketched character types. Henderson’s character of Sammy is basically a grizzled old veteran who is such a cliché he could have just said that he’s “Two days to retirement” like various old vets in films. Cailee Spaeny’s Jessie is just about every young, idealized wannabe protégé cliché, she basically begs her way onto the team, learns harsh realities about war in the field, and then starts to come into her own as a determined photojournalist. The thing is, Spaeny and Henderson manage to imbue the characters with a lived-in feel, and it makes them likable. Henderson’s Sammy has an exit from the movie that is dramatically stirring, even if one can see his end coming from a mile away.

Dunst is sort of the main character, but she is mostly silent and snapping photos a lot, but Dunst has always been great at looking like she is perpetually suffering from malaise. She seems cynical about the results of her job, as her career sent her overseas to cover war atrocities to convey to people at home that this shouldn’t happen and then a civil war broke out anyway. One moment they arrive at a town that seems blissfully unaware of what is going on and it turns out that is because snipers are on the rooftops to pick off any troublemakers. While in the store, Jessie gets Lee to try on a dress, giving them a brief feeling of normalcy. While Lee may be a bit too harsh on Jessie at times, she does eventually get the younger photographer to do their job, and by the end Jessie is taking most of the photos. Another great bit is when Lee is trying to negotiate for gasoline and the only way she can get their attention is when she says she’ll hand over 300 dollars of Canadian money. As the Civil War has obviously destroyed US currency values, Canadian money is the only thing that is worthwhile.

Moura as Joel has a great emotional breakdown near the end when it looks like they may miss their opportunity to find the President. Offerman as the President has a very limited role, he’s seen rehearsing a speech at the start, and as a disembodied voice on various broadcasts. The President is at the centrepiece of the film’s finale which has an army advancing on the White House as Lee, Jessie and Joel follow along. It is an amazing sequence featuring intense gunfire and an attack helicopter blazing down DC towards the White House. It is eventually revealed there is no pretense of taking the President alive which makes the scene even more brutal, and in a dark moment the Press Secretary comes out and tries to negotiate a surrender which the soldiers aren’t listening to. When the President is finally visible, Offerman makes him a truly pathetic dictator.

At its core, Civil War is mostly vignettes about the horrors of urban warfare that ratchets up the tension, like when Lee and Jessie end up taking pictures of a shoot-out that gets very messy for the prisoners. Or a nervous moment when they stumble across a sniper battle in an abandoned amusement park and while Joel tries to ask larger questions and the soldiers just say they are simply trying to stay alive. The most intense and disturbing bit is when they find a soldier played by Jesse Plemons (someone who can always do intimidating) who unleashes bursts of shocking violence. While this isn’t really a political statement, it does a great job of putting the audience up close and personal with warfare. It is definitely a stirring, if often disturbing, experience.