"Civil War" movie review (SPOILERS)
Will Alex Garland's dystopian action film advance the conversation about democracy?
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.
By the time A24 released Civil War, Reporters Without Borders had recorded at least 11 journalists killed on the job in 2024. The bulk of them died covering the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. 554 journalists and other media professionals were detained, overwhelmingly in China but also in Myanmar, Belarus, Israel, Russia & Vietnam. Journalists are just civilians telling stories, but in war zones they’re also soft targets. If this movie does anything well, it takes us inside that terrifying responsibility. The word “eyewitness” will hit very differently after you see Civil War.
This story is seen through the eyes of journalists covering this war. That’s one of the smartest choices writer/director Alex Garland made. Breaking up the battle scenes with photos — color from Lee (played by Kirsten Dunst) and black-and-white from Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) — helps your brain experience the atrocities in a deeper way. At first I was skeptical that a modern-day war movie needed to be told through still images, but this made me a believer. Garland and cinematographer Rob Hardy made this movie feel huge and claustrophobic at the same time… which makes it all the more horrifying.
My 20+ years of journalism experience kicked in early in the film, when a crowd of New Yorkers is pushing and shoving to get clean water rations. How did I know a suicide bomb was coming? Because the bomber walked away from the crowd looking surly, then ran directly at the tanker holding a massive American flag high overhead.
When I saw the flag my instincts said MOVE MOVE MOVE. Sure enough… boom.
The main characters represented various aspects of what makes journalists who we are: the cynic (Lee, played by Dunst), the adrenaline junkie (Joel, played by Wagner Moura), the promising newcomer (Jessie, played by Spaeny) and the rumpled veteran (Sammy, played by Stephen McKinley Henderson). Each reminds me of someone I respect, and the movie gives each their moment to shine. Lee had the same instincts that I had with that bombing; she pulls Jessie out of danger just in time.
What disappointed me was how some of them met their fates. From the beginning of the movie I suspected that Sammy, who is Black, (A) would not survive and (B) would make a noble sacrifice for everyone else. Indeed, Sammy saves everyone’s life in a terrifyingly tense moment, but takes a bullet in the process.
The scene where Sammy slowly bleeds to death in the group’s vehicle is one of the most oddly beautiful moments of the film. Soft music plays over slow-motion shots of a forest fire on either side of the highway. We see him slip away, marveling at the gently swirling embers. Relying on a Magical Negro is a problematic and lazy trope. Garland could’ve done better.
Then again, he also cops out on something much bigger: the storyline itself.
Before seeing Civil War, I had enormous concerns about its underlying message: not that I’d disagree with it, but that there wouldn’t really be one. The movie trailers revealed that this fictional America has two factions waging war against the Union: one group led by Texas & California, and another led by Florida. We’re also told that the president, played well by Nick Offerman, is in this third term (which is unconstitutional) and has disbanded the FBI (which is… a stretch). The Texas/California group, known as the Western Alliance, is on the verge of storming Washington, DC. Our protagonists leave from New York to document the Alliance’s invasion.
Hold up: Texas and California are fighting side-by-side? How does that work?
I dunno. You figure it out.
Some movies wisely use a MacGuffin to move things along without clearly explaining them. The letters of transit in Casablanca, the glowing suitcase in Pulp Fiction, etc. You just need to know what they are, and the story doesn’t rely on them for much else.
But America is an actual country with an actual history. Garland, who is British, seemed to think he could get away with making the MacGuffin of Civil War democracy itself. He apparently believed that we as Americans would just accept that this sort of thing would happen, and that we wouldn’t think too deeply about how.
Many of us worry about our democratic institutions failing, but if we’re going to strengthen them then we need a precise picture of where they’re weak. A three-term president who surrenders to insurrectionists? How did we let that happen when putting a bullet through his head would’ve been easier? Disband the FBI? Dude, you must not have met an FBI agent. As if they’d go quietly! Texas and California in a military alliance? Why did millions of their citizens go along with that?
More importantly: what are these secessionist factions fighting for? The real Civil War happened for real reasons. Slavery was both the ideological and economic motivator for the opening attack on Fort Sumter in 1861. What was the reason for Garland’s war? Or, is he just assuming that Americans are so basic and bellicose that we’d systematically collaborate to assassinate the president and destroy our government?
The very ending also left me flat. The president is writhing in terror on the floor of the Oval Office as the Western Alliance closes in. Before they can shoot him, Moura’s character Joel yells, “WAIT!!!
“I need a quote.”
“Don’t let them kill me,” the President begs.
“That’ll do,” Joel says. Bullets fly.
The End.
One thing about the storyline actually did work for me: the capacity of many Americans to stay out of the war. I doubt that we would descend into this kind of chaos willingly because, frankly, we’re too comfortable to. You think that many millions of us would sacrifice every single creature comfort, for ambiguous reasons, to sustain a revolt like this? We get cranky when Netflix goes down.
But man, this country has a lot of crazy people who would gladly fight in this war.
Suppose you’re right. How many? Where?
Enough to overcome the United States Armed Forces?
You’re gonna storm the White House? You and what army?
…speaking of whom, why isn’t the Army surrounding Washington as the secessionists close in? Did they commit treason? Why?
If you’re going to build a world where America could descend into insanity, at least show us how we went nuts. Otherwise, what exactly do you want us to prevent? Is this a warning about MAGA politics under Donald Trump? If not, then be clear about it. If it is… then be clear about it. Do the work.
These plot holes make this movie feel like it’s not really about war. It’s about homegrown terrorism. But we can’t stop them if we don’t know how they radicalized. What a lazy way to ensure the bad guys would win: deprive the good guys of enough information to fight back.
Despite all this, Civil War is worth seeing. It’s visually breathtaking and emotionally unnerving, with excellent battle sequences and some great acting. The atrocities are presented without flinching, sometimes in brutal shots that linger so long you can’t help staring. One shot in particular stands out: we see an overpass with graffiti reading “GO STEELERS”. But just as we laugh and say “Oh, Pittsburgh!”, we realize that the other side of the overpass has two bodies hanging from it. That kind of emotional whiplash is masterful.
America needs help having this tough conversation about democracy, but we have to do it right. Even science fiction is rooted in scientific facts: you have to acknowledge the rules of the real world before you break them. Star Trek’s warp drive is still based on the actual speed of light. Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now were still rooted in the actual Vietnam War. Giving the audience too much information insults our intelligence, but so does giving us too little.
Civil War is a good movie. But it’s not good enough to do enough good.
"why isn’t the Army surrounding Washington as the secessionists close in? Did they commit treason? Why?"
We're directly told the answer to this in the film. They've lost. They've surrendered. The Secret Service and a few die-hards remained loyal and attempt to stop the advance, but the military as a whole surrenders.
We're also told this is coming at the start of the movie, that it's going to be a race to Washington between the secessionist factions, because the loyalists are absolutely losing. That's the whole point of the protagonists' trip, they're trying to be the last people to photograph/interview the president before his inevitable (at this point) defeat and either trial/execution or murder/execution.
Also, feels a bit...incomplete to note Sammy's death without noting that Lee does exactly the same damn thing at the end of the film!
I did generally enjoy the film, but wonder if some of the reporters...hypocrisy, I guess? Was deliberate. Because throughout the movie, our protagonists never take a single action to interfere with what's happening in front of them, in any way, except taking pictures...unless a fellow reporter is involved, in which case they will act to try to help their fellow reporters. It was interesting and really made it feel like they were their own 'side' in the conflict.
Thank you for the review, w/ spoilers. I rarely bother with movies, but you have piqued my interest.