When I first saw the trailer for Civil War, I was underwhelmed.  It looked like a standard action movie, so much so that I wondered when Gerard Butler (star of the “Has Fallen” franchise) would show up to save the country from itself.  The combat footage didn’t look special, and the plot of the movie appeared to be entirely about how “America is fighting with itself”.  It wasn’t until people that I follow on social media explained the movie that I reconsidered seeing it.  While Civil War may be a nightmare scenario inspired by the Trump presidency, the movie isn’t about that at all.  For example, the movie’s Trump surrogate (a perfectly cast Nick Offerman) is barely shown in the movie.  (Not that I needed more than I got.)  And while Civil War may look like a traditional war movie at times, its primary focus is on how wars are represented by the media, specifically journalists.

Before I explain how Civil War is about war but not the war taking place within the story, I want to state that the movie’s combat footage is exceptional.  The trailers don’t adequately convey how visceral the battle scenes actually are.  Every gunshot and explosion is amplified, and all of the combat scenes are riveting.  However, these scenes aren’t intended to invoke heroism, but challenge our understanding of what wars are like and how they are depicted.  The movie is one of the most cerebral war movies I’ve seen, but it never shies away from the carnage or brutality that are inherent in armed conflicts.  While Civil War definitely wants you to feel like you are right in the middle of things, it also asks very pointed questions about the people who are responsible for covering it all.  What sort of people do this for a living?  What service are these people actually providing?   Why are they protected by the armed combatants while civilians are not?  Why are they allowed to take those specific pictures?

Alex Garland’s Civil War isn’t a story about soldiers or military men, but representatives from the news media.  Lee (Kirsten Dunst) is a legendary photojournalist known for her images of brutality.  Joel (Wagner Moura) is the hard-charging interviewer determined to get an interview with the President before he’s overthrown.  For that interview to happen, Lee and Joel must travel from New York, where the conflict is “manageable”, to Washington DC, where the President has surrounded himself with the military.  Even though the journey will be incredibly dangerous, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a writer from the New York Times, wants to join them.  He reminds them that the current administration shoots reporters on the White House lawn, but that doesn’t deter them.  A scoop is a scoop.  Joining their party is Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), who wants to be a photojournalist just like her hero, Lee.  Despite Lee’s misgivings, the four set off for DC.

If you’ve seen Apocalypse Now, the structure of the quartet’s journey is very similar.  Just like Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard went off to find Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz deep in the Vietnamese jungle, the journalists in Civil War are heading towards the same “heart of darkness”.  Like Willard and his crew, they set off with bravado, only to become increasingly uneasy with each disturbing encounter along the way.  The difference here is that as journalists, Lee, Joel, Sammy and Jessie are accustomed to having a shield of immunity protecting them from harm.  If they were abroad, they would feel safe because everyone knows they are unarmed.  In this movie, however, they’re American citizens, just like the factions that are fighting each other.  As such, they can easily become collateral damage by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  There’s a scene with Jesse Plemons (Mr. Kirsten Dunst) where he doesn’t care that Lee and the others are members of the press.  Insead, he sees everyone not in a military uniform as an enemy combatant.  It’s an incredibly harrowing scene that quickly devolves into a life-threatening situation because when one group of Americans has been ordered to kill other Americans, you no longer need a reason to kill anyone.

When our group finally reaches DC, it’s showtime.  The military who report to the President have surrendered, meaning that the Western Forces are free to march directly to the fortified White House.  The understanding is that once there, the WF will obtain the President’s surrender. However, given how the final battle starts and proceeds, it’s apparent that surrender isn’t on the table, even though what the President has done to divide the country is never made clear.  As personified by Nick Offerman, he’s a self-righteous blowhard, but the movie never tells us what his offenses were besides gaining a third term.  (He wouldn’t have been the first.)  Regardless, the movie doesn’t care why there is another American Civil War, only that there is one and what role Lee and Jesse will play in the outcome.  As the adage goes, “pictures tell a thousand words”.  With every picture Lee and Jesse take, they tacitly convey the narrative the soldiers want them to tell.  In the end, it’s not only about which side wins, but having victory depicted in a way that’s eye-catching.

Civil War is unlike any war movie I’ve seen.  It certainly looks and sounds like a war movie.  There are battle scenes with people running around in fatigues and helmets firing assault rifles, tanks, helicopters firing missiles, bodies lying on the ground and so on.  What distinguishes this movie from the rest is that the protagonists aren’t fighting on either side of the battle.  In fact, the movie doesn’t provide us with a rooting interest in the conflict at all.  Instead, it has us follow four journalists who intend to document the war, no matter the cost.  Usually a movie like this would tell us about the heroism of these impartial observers, who put their lives on the line to bring the war home to us.  Civil War isn’t interested in that approach either, because it places these American journalists in the middle of a war happening on American soil.  It’s a provocative approach intended to confront our understanding of the nature of war journalism and the real purpose it serves, both for the combatants and those who consume the words and images produced.  Additionally, the movie pokes at how Americans have grown comfortable with hearing about wars raging in far-flung countries from within the comfort of our  homes.  Civil War wants people like me to consider what it would be like if war broke out in my country or even my neighborhood.

I’ve enjoyed nearly all of Alex Garland’s previous films.  I detested Men but admired its overall craftsmanship.  (For the record, I called it “fear and loathing in North Cornwall.)  Maybe he needed to get whatever was bugging him out of his system, because Civil War feels more in line with his previous films Ex Machina and Annihilation.  Garland’s best movies are a deft combination of the cerebral and provocative, and this one has plenty of both.  As with his previous films, Garland continues his exploration of women in positions of power/authority, the role of the military in chaotic situations, and how we rely too much on our perception of reality for the truth.  Civil War is a movie about war correspondents that, like the best journalism, challenges the audience with difficult questions and even more difficult answers.  It’s equally thrilling and thought-provoking, a combination that results in one of the most compelling action movies I’ve seen in years.  Highly Recommended.

Analysis

I’ve never seen war up close, but I know what war looks like and sounds like.  This is because no matter where it happens, the media is there to bring the details back home to their audience.  Whether it’s photographers, reporters or journalists, these brave souls risk their lives to explain what is happening.  Photographers capture the violent aspects of the conflict through striking images.  Reporters describe what is happening around them and interview the participants in real time.  Journalists analyze the conflict and provide context (historical, socio-economic, religious, etc.).  For media consumers like myself, the understanding is that the media observe and record war as “objective observers”, putting their lives on the line to provide us with an unbiased view of the conflict.  Civil War regards that underlying assumption with surprising skepticism and questions the role the media plays in military conflicts.  It also forces us, the audience, to consider what we are shown by the media and ask what purpose the words and images serve.

Writer-director Alex Garland has said that he was inspired by the political climate in 2020 when writing the screenplay for Civil War.  After seeing his movie, I can easily imagine him watching footage of what was happening in the US at the time and dreaming up the scenario that is the launching point for his movie.  Back then, the country was divided in many ways.  There were red states versus blue states, conservatives versus liberals, law enforcement versus people of color and so on.  Those protesting the death of George Floyd found themselves in physical confrontations with law enforcement.   The tenor of the country was at a level unseen since the Vietnam war.  Viewing everything across the pond in London, England, Garland envisioned a future where the country was in armed conflict with segments of itself.  It wasn’t a stretch for him to do so, because it was actually happening, just at a scale small enough to be categorized as  “civil disturbances”.  It wouldn’t take much for things to devolve into the premise of his movie, so Garland took the next logical step and came up with a story where America has splintered and troops from the various factions are fighting each other with tanks and soldiers armed with assault rifles.

Garland doesn’t position his movie as a cautionary tale against facism, though.  While he does a stunning job depicting the deafening nature of a modern armed conflict, his overriding interest is in exploring how that conflict is represented.  For example, the President of this near-future, played by Nick Offerman, is only seen briefly in two scenes, once in the beginning and once at the end.  His voice is heard on static-filled radio broadcasts, but how the country got to this point is never explained.  As some have pointed out, Civil War provides no rooting interest for the audience.  Lee, the photojournalist played by Kirsten Dunst, is the leading character but is not portrayed sympathetically.  Although she is the preeminent photographer of her time, Lee isn’t interested in her own legend.  She’s grown callused from years of photographing conflicts and gets through the day with steely, dead-eyed determination.  Lee’s like Dirty Harry if he’d been given a camera instead of a gun.  She doesn’t care who lives or dies, so long as she lives and gets the perfect shot.  (The movie furthers the image of Lee as an action movie “cynical pro” by requiring her to be a mentor to Jessie, for whom Lee is a hero.)

As I mentioned above, the particulars of the war aren’t important to Garland.  He’s more interested in how the media are used as tools to relay the narrative the combatants want others to hear.  Garland uses an early scene where Lee is trying to relax after a long day’s work in a hotel bathtub to show the queasy relationship between the media and the military.  Instead of her mind being at peace, she remembers a horrific scene where a man is apprehended by armed men, has a tire thrown over his head, doused with liquid and set afire.  Lee dutifully photographed the episode, documenting the brutality for all to see.  From Garland’s perspective, Lee isn’t an objective observer at all, but a participant in the attack.  Those on the side of the viciousness allowed her to photograph the killing because they want that image to send a message to anyone who stands against them:  oppose us and you’ll meet the same fate.  Lee, for her part, has convinced herself she’s just doing her job, no matter how ghoulish it may be.  She believes that it is her role to present aspects of a war completely unvarnished.  However, as Garland shows us throughout the movie, every picture she takes tells a story, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.

Garland also views Lee’s associates with a similarly jaundiced eye.  Joel (Wagner Moura), the reporter in the group, desperately wants to interview the President before he dies.  However, insead of being “all business” like Lee, he acts like a groupie.  At the outset of their journey, Joel admits that the sound of gunfire in the distance arouses him.  He shamelessly hits on Jessie and a girl at a clothing store.  He’s less a reporter than an adrenaline junkie in search of the next exciting gig.  He always wants to be where the action is, and uses his proximity to the conflict to befriend soldiers, the rock stars of the conflict.  

Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a reporter for The New York Times, represents the old guard media.  Garland, never one for subtlety, has a gray-haired actor play an employee of “The Gray Lady”.  While Sammy’s age gives him insight that the others don’t have, he’s presented as feeble and a burden.  He can’t run, and Lee is certain his lack of mobility will get him killed along their journey.  As it turns out, Garland has Sammy play a critical role in helping the group escape certain death at the hands of the Army.  In giving Sammy a heroic moment, Garland says that those with a long-term view of war aren’t so useless after all, and are actually more important than youngsters would ever admit.

It’s through Jessie that Garland makes his most overt statement about how the media are often used as military mouthpieces.  In the movie’s riveting climax, Lee has become paralyzed by fear.  The members of the Western Forces notice this and choose Jessie to document their every action on their path to victory.  As the soldiers fight their way through the White House, they keep Jessie out of danger so that she’s able to document the blood they spill in the name of liberty.  In one key scene, she photographs the cold-blooded murder of an unarmed woman attempting to negotiate the President’s surrender.  Unfortunately for her, the members of the Western Forces see the current administration as insurrectionists, and documenting their deaths  is a necessary matter of course.  

Jessie, who wants to be like her hero Lee, fearlessly captures every killing with the skill of her hero.  She’s also completely oblivious to how her pictures will be used as evidence of how heroic the soldiers of the Western Forces were that day.  Garland uses Jessie’s evolution from wide-eyed novice to unflappable photojournalist to comment on her profession.  First, it provides context for how Lee became the callused person that we meet in this movie.  Second, it shows how those in her profession become hooked on getting the perfect shot, no matter what it takes.  Strangely, Garland’s opinion of photojournalism reminded me of The Joker’s quip from the 1989 Batman:

Ah! Now that’s good work! The skulls… the bodies… you give it all such a glow! I don’t know if it’s art, but I like it!

In terms of other themes in Civil War, the movie is also a knock at how America has had the privilege of being able to report on strife abroad but never at home.  The country hasn’t experienced an armed conflict within its borders since the Civil War of 1861-65 .  Because of how stable things have been in America, the media has often sent reporters to cover conflicts everywhere on the globe.  People like me have long been able to view images of violence and bloodshed from the safety of our living room couches, confident that what we see will never happen here.  Garland, however, disrupts this notion by having members of the American media report on a conflict within its own borders featuring American citizens.  

As the deaths mount, the attitudes of our fearless reporters change significantly.  Joel’s bravado, Lee’s stoic determination and Sammy’s confidence are replaced by fear, horror and outrage.  It’s one thing to document someone else’s conflict and be able to retire to your hotel room, or fly home when things become untenable.  It’s another thing entirely when there is no way to escape the conflict because it’s happening in your country.  Garland drives this point home through the killing of Joel’s friends and Sammy.  Lee was able to compartmentalize the deaths of other people when they were foreigners.  She’s unable to do the same while covering this war because her friends have become collateral damage.  This war isn’t someone else’s war that she can leave behind–its hers.

The Fog of War

Garland cleverly uses the setting of a war on American soil between Americans to comment on how disorientating war actually is.  With the exception of one scene, the combatants in the movie all wear combat fatigues that are nearly identical.  This reminded me of how I feel when I watch footage of the war in Ukraine.  The only way I know I’m looking at Ukrainian soldiers is because the embedded reporter states that’s who they are.  In the movie, when the Western  Forces arrive, Garland shows us repeatedly that these soldiers wear patches with two stars on them instead of fifty.  Without that patch, I’d have no way of knowing what side those soldiers were on.

Finally, Garland constructs the climactic siege of DC by the Western Forces to drive home what being in an actual military operation looks and sounds like.  Garland’s direction has been masterfully suspenseful before this point, accentuating the dread and fear everyone feels the closer they get to DC.  The final battle is on a completely different level as pure, explosive chaos.  The sounds of the gunshots and explosions are amplified to a level that’s deafening, to the point where Lee, Joel and Jessie can’t hear themselves think.  (Joel has to force Lee to move.)  Garland wants us to know that unlike how wars are depicted in movies and television shows, the actual atmosphere would be incredibly oppressive to anyone who isn’t in the military.  When you’re in the center of the battle, there’s nowhere safe.