Spoilers think war is anything but civil.

Okey this is going to be a bit conflicted. There’s something this movie appears to be ready to say, and doesn’t. There is something it is showing, but not critiquing. There’s something that it really is trying to portray, but blatantly fails at it. We’re going to go into some of it, but I do have to say this just didn’t work for me because of what it lacks. No, this one is not recommended. Scalpel, please…

(Credit: A24)

Civil War (2024) was written and directed by Alex Garland. Picture a dystopian world of today where something happened and the US of A has fractured and escalated into an internal military conflict. You can insert the joke on how this is close to reality today, but don’t jump ahead just yet. A team of jaded journalists that starts with veteran Lee (Kirsten Dunst), Joel (Wagner Moura) and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) are joined by rookie Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) as they travel from New York to Washington DC. Jessie idolizes Lee and her work as a photojournalist and is following in her footsteps.

To its credit, the movie doesn’t pick a side between the so-called “loyalists” who are faithful to the president, and the “secessionists” militia from the Western Forces made of Texas and California. However, it does depict extreme dehumanizing behavior witnessed by the journalists en route to DC. The most brutalist scene is not when the movie depicts the dead but when it shows open racist and xenophobic behavior. When armed militia question reporters at gunpoint asking if they are “American” while judging their looks and their accent, you can already tell what kind of messed up standards they have adopted.

So here’s the biggest spoiler of the film. If you’ve watched the trailer, or peeked at one of the scenes, that’s it. That’s the whole film. I don’t mind a film that doesn’t explain how we got there, but the filmmaker seems to have intentionally removed all moderate parties from the equation and just let the far right sentiment play along all sides with complete abandon. It does this to say absolute nothing about the war. This is theme of depicting brutality with no comment permeates the entire film.

To add insult to injury, this background is used to tell a story about pseudo-journalists that do not get involved. Dunst’s character even reinforces this saying that they take pictures but “do not ask”. Journalism asks questions. You also see them inside a refugee camp at some point and they don’t think about taking a single picture. The concept of journalism in this film feels detracted from reality. If the story is lacking elements in its portrayal of war, it’s doing an even lousier job portraying what a journalist does. This is a socio-political fiction film with a lot of action that never criticizes anything.

Not recommended simply because as a movie, it has plenty of conflict without story. As a portrayal of journalism, it’s inaccurate and poor. When you opt to just shoot a thriller with this background and no commentary, it feels you’re literally leaving the work to the audience. Save the watch for a rainy day, but if you just watch the trailer that’s as deep as it’s going to get.

That will do for now.