Self-important & strangely small Overhyped ‘Civil War’ conflict of no interest
ALL director Alex Garland had to do was title his new movie “Civil War” for it to instantly be deemed Very Important by tastemakers. Who cares that the script is lousy? Or that the acting is monotonous? Or that the story amounts to a series of gruesome killings that you’d rather not sit through? Doesn’t matter. It’s essential! The gnarly film is about a modernday domestic war in America, and is therefore a prescient warning to us all, we’ve been told with conspicuous enthusiasm by lefty newspaper op-eds.
They insist: You, too, could soon be tied up at a roadside gas station and tortured by dudes with Southern drawls.
But really Garland’s movie is no more vital to the discourse than “The Purge,” and is about 1% as entertaining.
“Civil War’s” shtick is that it’s not specifically political.
For instance, as the US devolves into enemy groups of secessionist states, Texas and California have banded together to form the Western Forces. Such an alliance is about as likely as a Sweetgreen/Kentucky Fried Chicken combo restaurant.
Still, one deadly encounter with a soldier played by Jesse Plemons leaves no doubts about what actual party he is supposed to represent.
The Western Forces are duking it out with the loyalist states who follow the president (Nick Offerman) — a fascist in an illegal third term — as well as the Florida Alliance and the New People’s Army.
The fights are mostly just three or four guys shooting three or four other guys until a slightly bigger clash at the end. All we get are tiny tussles in a war supposedly affecting 350 million people.
Garland, with his incessant vagueness, is clearly aiming to keep the story universal rather than divisive. However, considering his movie is set in a land of folks who love to argue about the news, it’s odd that none of the characters ever give concrete details about what’s going on. How did this conflict start? What does anybody stand for? Who knows?
Avoiding the elephant (and donkey) in the room makes the whole shebang feel fake.
Our guides through this not-believable hellscape are four unlikable war journalists whose lives we barely learn about.
Kirsten Dunst plays Lee Smith, a frontline photographer for Reuters who’s become numbed to violence. Joel (Wagner Moura) is her reporter sidekick, who gets a thrill out of the battlefield . . . until he doesn’t. Moura’s performance leads me to believe his numbskull journo couldn’t convince a telemarketer to talk to him.
Stephen McKinley Henderson is an aging New York Times writer named Sammy. And Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) is a young, aspiring fotog who worships Lee and tags along.
They embark on a road trip from New York City — which is being bombed — to Washington, DC, in an attempt to interview the presshating president who is hiding out in the White House.
The plot plods along — they drive a bit, guy gets shot, they drive some more, guy gets shot — and the dialogue is bottom of the barrel.
At one point, Joel walks into a clothing store in an eerily calm small town and says, “Are you guys aware that there’s a pretty big civil war going on all across America?”
This is what The New York Times called “a terrifying premonition of American collapse”!
How about instead of torturing viewers with a parade of pointblank executions, Garland tries making a well-executed film?
Johnny Oleksinski MOVIE REVIEW
CIVIL WAR
A losing battle. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated R (strong violent content, bloody/disturbing images and language throughout). In theaters.