In the climax of “Civil War,” American soldiers are attempting to break through the outer perimeter of the White House, intent on finding and killing the third-term US President. Closely following them as bullets and artillery fire rain on the roads are a group of journalists.
Now, one and a half hours into the film, it was more surprising how nothing transpiring on-screen even mattered.
In a very likely future for the United States, an unnamed current President of the United States (Nick Offerman) appears on a televised national address from the White House and assures Americans that the civil war between the United States and the Western Forces (WF) is nearly at an end.
Bearing a flag similar to the United States except with only two stars, the WF is led by Texas and California, two major states that have seceded from the US, as their campaign to dispose of the president marches on from the west towards Washington.
Over 400 km away to the east, veteran war photojournalist Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) and journalist Joel (Wagner Moura) begin their journey to the White House, hoping to interview the president before the war ends.
The duo is joined by veteran journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and a young aspiring photographer named Jessie (Cailee Spaeny). Along the way, the group witnesses a broken, war-torn US.
A costly misdirection
Having built a reputation as the premier indie film company, A24 can present a butter knife as a gun, and it would sell out immediately. Under that lens, it makes sense why the company marketed “Civil War” as an action and war film when it simply is not that.
The film is more in line with a faux war documentary, displaying images of desensitized (war) journalists and photojournalists rushing towards whatever is newsworthy with reckless abandon, all to capture the money shot under a rush of adrenaline.
Therein lies the problem, where the above is all that the film is. Real-world documentaries like Cartel Land not only do the above, but they also tell a cohesive story. On the other hand, “Civil War” is a film that is as creatively bankrupt as the vapid and hollow presentation of its politics.
There is no background information on why things are the way they are in “Civil War” and writer-director Alex Garland does not care about filling in the blanks or leaving enough for the audience to interpret themselves adequately.
In the film, there is a scene where Smith attempts to negotiate with heavily armed gas station workers. After she offers one of them US300 (RM1,413 today) for fuel, he smirks and declines, but when Smith reiterates that she means 300 Canadian dollars (RM1,038 today), his eyes light up.
The storytelling here is subtle, as the exchange reveals that the US dollar has severely weakened against the Canadian dollar due to the civil war without either of the characters spelling it out. This is the only smart storytelling moment in the entirety of “Civil War.”
Empty spectacle and discourse
Let us be real here: there is a very serious demographic in the US on either side of the political spectrum that wants to see the genocidal geriatric and the corrupt human orange from the opposing side get the Osama bin Laden treatment.
“Civil War” purports in its false marketing to deliver that, using Offerman’s US President character as a stand-in for his real-world counterparts, while the film would also tell a deeply personal story of a fictional US where its politics have torn the country apart as the worst nightmares and fantasies of Americans have come to pass.
These simply do not take place, as Garland seems to have lost his courage in storytelling since he wrote and directed the fantastic “Ex Machina” 10 years ago. He refuses to make a stand—or any stand—in “Civil War.” The story is not shaped to deliver his stance on whether the things occurring in the film are good or bad, and his characters do not do it either.
Rather ironically, the main characters, despite being journalists, never talk about the state that the US is currently in. Unlike how chatty real-life Americans are with their silly politics, the minor characters are the extreme opposite of who they’re based on.
Viewers will never learn what led to the WF states seceding, the US President’s actions, the current geopolitical relations between the US and foreign countries, or anything that is narratively meaty due to how surface-level the writing is.
At the very least, the actors are entertaining. Dunst is excellent, bringing a fraught, aged element to her PTSD-riddled Smith, while Moura offsets the latter with a layer of fun through his adrenaline-junkie character.
Spaeny rounds out the lead trio’s performance, and she’s a star in the making. Even Jesse Plemons plays his uncredited role as an ultranationalist maniac excellently, as the main characters stumble into him and are held at gunpoint.
Despite all the praise that can be sung for the actors, their performances are not enough to mitigate the mediocre script.
Like the blood streaming out of gunshot wounds inflicted on despotic leaders, Garland’s centrist point of view has only harmed “Civil War” by draining the potential out of its skeletal premise inspired by the real United States of America.
