CIVIL WAR (2024)

CIVIL WAR is a scathing piece of cinema, with a real philosophical POV (which will probably piss off highly politicized people of either wing) and a career-best performance by Kirstin Dunst. (It also avoids a “Sambo Alert” by the thinnest of margins, a single line of dialogue by a soldier. Some will not consider this sufficient. Given what I know about “28 Days Later”, Garland now makes my Spidey-Sense tingle. However, I think the movie is powerful and important enough for me to focus on the positive. I’ve done it for lesser films. “Secret In Their Eyes” got the same demi-pass on the same day, for instance)

Basically a president makes a power grab for a third term, and the country responds variously, including secession of several, including Florida, California and Texas. The story follows a group of reporters trying to get from New York to D.C. to interview the President, and is told primarily in a series of vignettes that demonstrate pretty much everything about the filmmaker perspective on the horrors of a civil war.

This is really powerful stuff, and if there is some disturbing imagery around the margins, well, that’s honest as well. Important to understand how people really feel, as opposed to what they say to your face. The primary message goes way beyond partisan politics, as Dunst and her companions believe their dissociation will protect them from horror, and have that armor peeled away one incident at a time. Works as an adventure film, a war film, a cautionary tale, and a psychological study. Fine genre film-making.

Thumbs up.