Review: CIVIL WAR- Writer/Director Alex Garland Paints a Bleak, Unflinching & Haunting Portrait of a Nation with No Future (2024)

I’m late to the party with my review of Civil War as I had to wait to this past Monday to view it and this isn’t technically an action movie but an unflinching and unnerving portrait of a United States with no future peppered with a few adrenaline laced beats and a finale that will leave you breathless. At no time is any of the action meant to be for entertainment value and the message it conveys is a true haunting warning of what may come if we don’t get our collective sh*t together as a nation. It’s hard to review a movie like this because it reflects on certain past real-life events and even though life definitely did not imitate art there, it could have certainly opened up into something more catastrophic. This is an election year and I feel that the release of this movie at this time is not by accident but by design so I’m going to review it as a thriller with a message as writer/director Alex Garland even leaves the proceedings cryptic for various reasons.

The main core of the plot in Civil War has to do with the fact that Texas has joined California in separating from the rest of the nation and it’s never conveyed why they did but audiences can draw their own conclusions as to why this happened. As the movie opens up, it has been quite some time since the beginning of this new civil war and we are introduced to season war journalist Lee, played with emotional gravitas by an excellent Kirsten Dunst, who wants to make a treacherous trek to Washington D.C. to interview the president (Nick Offerman) of what’s left of the United States. Along with Lee is Joel (Wagner Moura), her trusted confident and you can tell that these two have been together professionally for a long time. Lee is embittered and battered as all the hard years of covering warzones is starting to take its toll on her so finding and speaking to the president is her last hurrah as there are new real stories left from all of this. Lee is a poster child for pessimism now and Dunst plays the character with a solemn sensitivity that makes you become invested in her.

Enter Jessie, played by the upcoming Alien: Romulus’ Cailee Spaeny, a fresh-faced photojournalist who looks up to Lee as a hero. Jessie wants to be like her in every way and wants to take the dangerous ride as well with Lee being hesitant at first, but Joel talks her into it by saying that Jessie is her years ago. Now along with seasoned journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) the four venture off into the dark and desolate unknown of a country torn apart by war and death to complete their mission.

Director Alex Garland leaves the politics out of this one like I said with the filmmaker leaving certain aspects up to the viewer’s interpretation and I liked that aspect as Civil War isn’t preachy or overbearing with metaphors. At the center is a thriller that depicts a very forlorn situation that truly makes me fear for the future of my children. The trailers would make you believe that this is an all-out war epic, and it is to some degree but under all of it, there are so many more layers to it with this being more of a character study of Americans who are in a very unforgiving situation with no resolution in sight. It’s bleak, depressing and unapologetic in its execution and I felt uneasy watching several of the scenes.

One aspect I liked was the fact that many of the soldiers our four protagonists ran into on their perilous journey was abstract to who they really were. We are unclear if they are regular US forces or separatists and that makes it even more changeling for the viewer because when it’s Americans fighting Americans, the lines are truly blurred from the get-go. Garland is at his best when throwing the four into different levels of altercations and each one is more harrowing then the next and is quite nail biting.

The worse sequence involves actor Jesse Plemons who is the most frightening character they descend upon. He has no name and no history, but he is terrifying and ruthless on all levels serving up a scene that is extremely hard to stomach. One thing for sure is that he’s up to no good as you see him in the process of burying civilians in a mass grave that he most likely executed. The most chilling moment comes when he asks Lee, Joel and the others, “What kind of an Amercian are you?” That one question is the true foundation of the entire film, and you could hear a pin drop in my theater when this particular scene was ongoing. It’s pretty crazy as Plemons was added to the cast mere days from production as the original actor dropped out and hence this scene and his performance will be iconic.

Civil War earns its R rating as this is some very hardcore stuff with beats of shocking violence and there were several times when I jumped because you don’t see it coming. The violence is real and gruesome and necessary to convey what is really going on here and garland hits viewers over the head with is like blunt force trauma. He doesn’t shy away from conveying how horrible this situation could be if it ever got this bad and that, at its core, is what thus movie is all about.

As good as Dunst was in the movie, I felt that Cailee Spaeny had the truest and most raw character arc of the entire cast. At first Jesse is naive and the site of the horrors of war make her sick to her stomach but as the movie runs along, Jesse changes from all that she has seen. Is it for the better? We never really know but it is clear that with each situation leading up to the finale, Jesse is transforming into Lee and that is what the latter was afraid of. After watching Spaeny here, I am even more excited to see how see handles Alien: Romulus when it hits theaters in August.

Now in terms of battle action, the finale is worth the price of admission alone and I was fortunate enough to see it in IMAX and let me tell you, there’s no other way to view it as the visuals and sound immerses you into the firefight. It’s not meant to be celebrated like I said but this is one of the best and most flawlessly executed war scenes ever put on film. The sound is deafening and the choreography mixing the soldiers, embedded journalists and war machines like attack choppers, Humvees and tanks are all used to the highest level. The sequence is jarring and serves up a beautiful chaos of bloody violence in the process and Garland executes it all to near perfection. The assault on the White House, which serves as the very last leg of the film, is also a rousing mix of carnage and combat on a whole new level and the movie ends the only way it really can as there is no end. Only questions and remorse. It’s epically haunting on several levels.

Overall, Civil War negates politics as writer/director Alex Garland showcases the aftermath of a nation steeped in chaos and violence. He never serves up a real reason as to why this all started but leaving it up to the viewer was a true stroke of genius and it works. It never gets bogged down with preachiness, but it does rattle the viewer with several sequences of the horrors of war and with this war on American soil, it makes it even more catastrophic and depressing. The cast are all in top form with Dunst delivering one of her best performances ever and Spaeny shows us why she is a future star in the making. The finale is an epic barrage of tracer fire, explosions, deafening sound and sadness and when the credits roll, the viewer will be left to ponder what they have just experienced. Like I said earlier, it’s movies like this that make me fear for the future of my daughters and that’s the biggest compliment I could ever give.

VERDICT: 4 Out of 5

Civil War is a hard movie to watch and an even harder movie to understand but the execution is a haunting and bleak picture of a nation at bloody war with itself.