Civil War (2024).....wants to rock your senses to the core, while it dances around all the incendiary controversies it toys with.....
And this is what passes for a political movie in our current toxic culture.....a multi-plex thrill-ride that exploits its central ideas without a single point of view of its own.....
.....with one single exception.
Smack in the middle of the film comes one brief horrific sequence that serves up more genuine dread and terror than any Blumhouse horror movie could ever deliver.....
And it stands out not only for its cringe-inducing power, it's the only scene where writer-director Alex Garland at last shows his hand, and reveals the disturbing truths you sensed the film was hinting at all the way through.
But for now, let's back up to the beginning.....
A near future American civil war's finally broken out. The besieged President (Nick Offerman) a Trumpian fascist imbecile now reaps the whirlwind for gifting himself with a 3rd term, disbanding the FBI and committing who knows how many other unconstitutional acts.
Covering the non-stop carnage is a veteran press contingent - photojournalist Lee (Kirsten Dunst), reporter Joel (Wagner Moura), and weary old newman Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson.
They're joined, to Lee's anger and anxiety, by Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) a clueless, naive young wanna-be photographer. She looks like a 13 year old and doesn't know enough to wear a kevlar vest and helmet when wading into a battle zone.
These four than embark on a perilous car trip to Washington D.C., where the would-be President-For-Life is on the verge of being overrun by the combined 'Western Forces' of California and Texas....
California and Texas? Say what now?
Pardon us for thinking out loud but the whole time we spent watching 'Civil War', we couldn't help wondering, in what world do California and Texas join forces to overthrow the government?
That almost sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit about Basic Training at the Western Forces boot camp, with the recruits divided up between surfers and cowboys.........
But in 'Civil War', the WF army smells victory like napalm in the morning, and they appear to have access to vast amounts helicopters, tanks and assorted military hardware.......(possibly leftover inventory from 'Apocalypse Now'?)
In scenes of a battle-ravaged, corpse strewn, war-torn America, Garland's direction excels in propulsive visual imagery. He's out to rub our noses in what an actual American war would look like......and puts his lead characters and us, the viewers directly in the line of fire.......
Throughout the film, though, he carefully avoids all the political explanations for his literally explosive action sequences.....
.....until we come to that horrifying single scene we mentioned earlier in this review.
On the road, our journalist gang, to their everlasting misery, stumble upon some freelance, blatantly right-wing terrorists led by their worst nightmare.....a scary MAGA militia man (Jesse Plemons), with an agenda to execute anyone who doesn't immediately fit his category of true Americans.
And he's already piled up a body count to rival Nazi concentration camps.......
The uncredited Plemons turns this episode into by far the most harrowing scene you'll ever squirm through. He embodies every Trump Proud Boy, every rabid Trumpanzee and every foul idea ever spewed out of Baby Orange's diseased mind.
You can think of this sequence as an alternative history....a speculative snapshot of the U.S. if Trump's mob had actually succeeded in overthrowing the democratic transition of power on January 6th.
But after this brilliant, unnerving moment, the film's content to go back to pure, unadulterated combat slaughter.....a firefight, fireworks show as the surviving journalists follow the WF forces as they lay siege to the White House. Woo-hoo, pass the popcorn....
Worth seeing? Yes. It's a fascinating, striking work by an always provocative filmmaker.......and whatever you may think of it, we can safely guarantee you'll hang on for dear life until it's over.
We must say that it's also a film that mostly settles for being a bang-pow-zowie stereophonic eye-popper........and only develops the courage of its convictions in one single scene.....you know the one we're talking about.....
3 stars (***)
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