Civil War
With the dystopian Civil War, writer-director Alex Garland explores what would happen if America is crushed and how combat reporters capture humanity’s worst nightmare.
In this taut action-drama, a gang of photojournalists journeys in a press SUV behind Western Front lines to join their march on the capital, covertly seeking to capture or execute the commander-in-chief. Kirsten Dunst plays veteran war photographer Lee, who looks sad and judgmental like a schoolteacher. Her friend, Reuters reporter Joel (Wagner Moura), is a combat-adrenaline junkie who gets happy after each horrific shoot-up. The wise New York Times reporter Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is old and tired. Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a recent college graduate, cheekily sweet-talks Joel into allowing her a ride-along in their press vehicle and becomes a wise-crack overnight. In the tradition of fictional war journalists, they discuss whether media makes a difference and what they would photograph, but they never address what precipitated this civil war.
Garland provides his characters strange and bizarre moments and interactions, underscored by intriguing and powerful music that reflects their trauma.
Akin to the character of Captain Hillard in Apocalypse Now, venturing down the river to find the insane Colonel Kurtz, the plural-protagonists further descend the highway of moral decay as it quickly becomes a bizarre, violent, ideologically meaningless dream of disarray.
As previously explored in-depth, with great achievement, in films like Peter Weir’s, The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) and Roland Joffe’s masterpiece, The Killing Fields (1984), Civil War offers an intriguing look at journalists’ impact as historians as they discover hollowed-out, stripped malls and militia-controlled communities, bridled with senseless violence, and the relationships built through getting that award-winning photo.
As visually stunning as Civil War is, the plot gradually disintegrates, and doesn’t hold a flashbulb to the accomplishments of the above-mentioned films.
The film’s fence-sitting refusal to mention any concerns that may lead to a civil war may allow it to appeal to a larger action film adoring audience. Garland’s action scenes offer dire, chaotic scenarios that result in striking stomach-churning set pieces.
Garland realises that using people’s pictures and voices for journalism is exploitative and dismisses its potential. When the film reaches its anti-climactic denouement, ultimately, Civil War fails to deliver what it promises.
Civil War releases in cinemas on Friday, 12 April 2024.
-Dirk Lombard Fourie