‘Civil War’ Is Stupid
People, we are not heading into a second Civil War
Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ depicts an alternate dystopian future where the United States engages in a gritty, violent conflict that displaces millions and turns millions more into roadside hamburger. Garland’s USA is full of burning shopping malls and depopulated suburban office buildings strafed by vicious militia gunfire. This could happen here, he seems to say. Except that it can’t, and won’t, so it makes the film’s warnings, which Garland means to be serious and dire, feel frivolous, irresponsible, and pretentious.
CIVIL WAR ★★★ (3/5 stars)
Directed by: Alex Garland
Written by: Alex Garland
Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, Steven McKinley Henderson, Jesse Plemons, Nick Offerman
Running time: 109 mins
Rather than explain to us how we came to the point where a coalition of Texas, Florida, and California somehow acquired of stealth bombers and tanks and are staging a march on Washington, D.C. to overthrow the President, Garland chooses to set his Civil War at the end of the Civil War, from the point of view of a weary war photographer, played to an anhedonic 10 by Kirsten Dunst.
She and her hipster gonzo journalist friend, low-budget Pedro Pascal substitute Wagner Moura, hook up with a naive photojournalist (Caillee Spaeny), who reminds Dunst of her younger self, and a pompous yoda-like New York Times reporter who should be at home with his feet up, played by Steven McKinley Henderson. The journalists are the real heroes, and we follow them on a dangerous road trip from New York City to Washington. D.C., where they are attempting to get one last interview with President Nick Offerman before the “Western Forces” kill him at the end of his unjustly-seized third term where he has ordered airstrikes on his own citizens.
Other than a few brief bathtub flashbacks to Dunst’s past war trauma, Garland tells his story in a straight line, with gritty, realistic-feeling gunfights and scenes of horror, culminating with an epic and deeply silly battle to take control of the White House. Throughout, the photo journalists take photos, all designed to fill us our heads with the novel message that War Is Bad. We know that, and have seen that in hundreds of better movies. But why this war, and why depict it now?
Garland seems to want to be warning us that It Could Happen Here. But what, exactly, is happening here? There are references to “Portland Maoists” and an “Antifa Massacre.” Was Antifa getting massacred? Were they doing the massacre? Are they the bad guys or the good guys? Is Texas on the side of Antifa? Seems unlikely. Is Florida on the side of California? Seems unlikely. Are the rebels wearing Hawaiian shirts or are they wearing full military gear, or both? Garland muddies the waters to bad effect. Maybe if the reporters we follow the whole movie were actually doing some reporting, that would help get our heads straight.
Garland presents Civil War as warning, but instead he’s made an art-house ‘Red Dawn’ without the fun crew of teenage underdogs and the amped-up cheese factor. Red Dawn, as ridiculous as the premise was, tapped into some very weird Cold War fears and patriotic sentiments, and at least we knew who the good guys and bad guys were. The movie even took a little time to humanize the enemy, in the form of a Latin American general caught up in the conflict. Civil War lacks humanity, other than the journalists, who are the Real Heroes.
Though we can emphasize with Dunst’s trauma, and Spaeny has some gee-whiz appeal as she learns what the world is Really Like, there’s a kind of smugness to their journey. They repeatedly dismiss their parents, who are “living on farms” in the middle of America trying to “pretend that this isn’t really going on.” Silly rubes, not wanting to get into gunfights in suburban Pittsburgh! Garland seems to be saying “wake up, people, this is happening.” Except that it’s not even close to happening. Civil War is a total fantasy, and is the ultimate expression of Trump Derangement Syndrome on screen. The climactic battle is a kind of post-January 6 revenge fantasy that provides no satisfaction and no catharsis. It’s a fever dream for people who have migrated from X to Threads.
We live in contentious times, for sure, but this movie gets them all wrong, doesn’t understand the real conflicts that this country faces, and, most importantly, doesn’t understand what people who are going to the movies find entertaining. The rubes in the middle of the country will be tuning in to something else.
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You seem to have missed the whole point of the movie. This was the first time I have even really looked to read a review of any movie in my 43 years of living. This had to be the most childish and simple minded writing I have read in a long time. It’s obvious your personal political views shaped your review and is the exact type of mentality that would have to exist for the country to get to the point of a civil war.
yes it would definitely all be my fault because I didn’t like this movie
Yes, it would definitely be all your fault (There are better war films, better art movies, better road movies. It felt like a missed opportunity to do something really exciting. I kind of wondered what the point was 🤷)
“Neal Pollack is The Greatest Living American writer”…. You might have the Greatest EGO of an Living American. Neal Pollack talks about himself in the 3rd person and rather than be in unbiased, he shows high levels of smugness as well as bias and narcissism through his sloppily written op ed piece about a movie he just didn’t like. Hence Neal Pollack is not a credible source due to his personality traits bleeding into his career.
Au contraire. Some of us think Neal Pollack is one of the most penetrating writers and editors on the contemporary scene. Comments that amount to little more than personal attacks on the author of a BFG article are unworthy of publication. Thank you.
I don’t think this movie has anything to do with Trump. The fact that your mind goes to Trump, I suspect, says more about you than about the film itself. For me, therein lies the beauty. I personally did not see this movie as a commentary on the current moment, but rather very disconnected from the current moment. For me, that disconnection allowed it to become timelines, and I was transported into the world without bringing my own bias.
If you need a movie like this spoon fed to you where the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are painted-by-number for you, maybe critiquing art forms isn’t a good use of your time. Have you considered video game reviewing? They really zoom in on that.
This isn’t a movie making an argument that a civil war is going to happen – it’s cinema verite about what it might look like if those fears were realized. The point is to force the viewer to confront the resulting inhumanity of an outcome that is too frequently causally a part of our political discourse.
You have every right to still dislike it, but you’ve got to put more effort into getting to substantive issues than the really trite attempt made here.
I disagree, I think it’s a paranoid liberal fantasy, like I said, Red Dawn for the Trump era. I actually liked the verité elements of it and found myself thinking about it long after…and still do. But I wonder what the real appeal is and why it’s so popular.