Civil War

Usually when we are faced with an apocalyptic film, it is far enough into the future that we can't even relate to it. "Civil War" isn't necessarily an apocalyptic film, but considering it focuses on the dpwnfall of this country from within, it smacks of the 'end of the world', and something this country can see coming if we, as a people, don't do something to turn things around. 

From filmmaker Alex Garland, comes a journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists including Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), Joel (Wagner Moura), Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) and Sammy (Stephen McKinley-Henderson) as they race against time to reach Washington D.C. before rebel factions descend upon the White House. This film starts with the states, Texas and California already succeeding from the nation, and by now we are polarized as a people where killing each other is seemingly permissed if 'the system' doesn't know. These journalists' trek is fraught with numerous volatile situations before reaching D.C., and, of course, when reaching D.C., it is a proverbial war zone. 

This was directed with such grit all with a realistic view by Alex Garland ("Ex Machina" '14, "Annihilation" '18, "Men" '22) plus TV. This film, like Paul Greengrasses' "United 93" '06, is super-realistic where, after the film starts unfolding, it ends up with that documentary aspect, so the film becomes chilling.  This was also well written by Alex Garland ("The Beach" (story) 2000, "28 Days Later" '02, "The Tesseract" (novel) '03, "Sunshine" '07, "Never Let Me Go" '10, "Dredd" '12, "Ex Machina" '14, "Annihilation" '18, "Men" '22) plus video games and TV. This film is or could be prophetic if our country keeps going down the rabbit hole that it's going down. Right now, words and bullying are the order of the day, however, given time with zero change societally, this country will certainly become this film, and Garland really nailed it.The script was concise, cohesive and paced painstakingly well. This writer certainly knows how to write films about end times--simply look at his resume, and with this, produced a powerhouse story. Couple all this with the fine photography by Rob Hardy asc/bsc, and you have a gripping white-knuckle film that one can only wonder if this is our country's future. There were a couple of very small places of slowness with this, but truly not enough to take away from the impact of this.

If you're into 'end of time' type films, you'll revel with this. I believe that, through word of mouth, people will go to see this out of morbid curiosity to see if there is any potential connection to what's going on out there in our country and world that could be connected to what's happening in this film. Hopefully after seeing this film, one will walk out of the theater very thoughtful and come to a conclusion that if we don't change our ways of thinking, this film could very well be our future.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                                          Rated: R                                       107mins.