'Civil War' Movie Review: A Nightmare Scenario of American Mayhem

“It can’t happen here”—that’s the stock phrase used by Sinclair Lewis to warn about European-style fascism creeping into U.S. politics in the 1930s, by Frank Zappa to mock Eisenhower-era squares panicking about counterculture freaks in the 1960s, and by many Americans to reassure themselves of their country’s stability ever since the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Animosity between political camps in the United States feels more vicious than at any time in living memory, but a second civil war? It can’t happen here.

The 53-year-old British writer and director Alex Garland—whose previous work includes the novel The Beach; the screenplays 28 Days Later and Sunshine; films like Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Men; and the television series Devs—clearly thinks otherwise. But his new film, Civil War, is brazen in defying expectations. As we sleepwalk toward another Joe Biden-vs.-Donald Trump election (wait, can that happen here?), Garland’s picture is not about MAGA and antifa taking up arms in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial—at least not explicitly. His big artistic swing is obscuring U.S. politics from the disaster that’s unfolding on the screen. As such, he makes the insanity of civil war that much clearer.

The movie—a loud, relentless, and violent 109 minutes—was written in late 2020, when rushing the Capitol wasn’t even a gleam in an enraged podcaster’s eye. The story is set “some years from now,” in which the United States and its president (played by Nick Offerman) are on their last legs due to a coalition of secessionist forces. The hows and whys of this scenario shine through in well-placed cracks in the screenplay, but at no point do we get a clear picture. This lack of a credible political theory for war has been frustrating some since the movie’s trailer was released (an alliance between California and Texas? Huh?), and I can report that after a press screening in New York, several people gathered in the lobby to grouse about unconnectable dots. Respectfully, I say to these colleagues that they totally missed the point.

Civil War focuses on a band of four war correspondents. Kirsten Dunst plays our hero, Lee Smith, a photojournalist well aware that the most celebrated female World War II photographer was also named Lee. At her side is Joel (Wagner Moura), a reporter for Reuters. In the back seat are veteran journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who works for “what’s left of the New York Times,” as well as newbie photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), who idolizes Lee and fits nicely as a screenwriting crutch to explain the front lines to the audience. The four decide to travel from New York City to Washington, D.C., before the White House falls. Joel wants a quote from the president and Lee wants to get the shot.

This is the entirety of their motivation. Any political opinions they might have about the state of the nation are sublimated in pursuit of this goal. Lee even goes so far as to say, “We record so other people ask. That’s the job.” Civil War is a lot of things, but subtle it ain’t.

Their van trip resembles the patrol boat’s journey in Apocalypse Now, encountering nerve-wracking atrocities and surreal tableaux of terror. (I saw Civil War in IMAX at ear-splitting volume; the concession stand could easily swap Milk Duds for Klonopin.) We see a burned-out helicopter in the parking lot of a JCPenney and strung-up bodies on a highway overpass. We see factions killing one another without knowing which side they are on. This is the kind of confusion that most Americans might experience watching a movie about troubles in Syria or Sudan. But a sniper pinning our main characters down outside a kitschy Christmas supplies emporium obviously hits differently.

It’s only natural, however, to try to piece the chaos in the film together. What we know is that the depicted president is currently in his third term. At some point, he dissolved the FBI and authorized airstrikes on U.S. citizens. He wears a red tie and makes exaggerated statements like “the greatest military victory of all time” (Trump?), but he also speaks calmly and in complete sentences (not very Trump). In a profile shot, Offerman as the unnamed POTUS reminded me of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

The main secessionists are the Western Forces—the aforementioned alliance between California and Texas. They fly what looks like a typical American flag but with only two stars. Where they get their matériel is unclear. Florida is on their side, but Sammy compares this to the U.S.-British-Russian alliance in World War II—as soon as their common enemy is defeated, their schism will be the next fight. (Also, Portland is said to be overrun by Maoists.)

We learn that Lee made her bones by getting a celebrated shot during “The Antifa Massacre.” It s typical of Civil War just how ambiguous this bit of backstory is. Was antifa doing the massacring or being massacred? In the film, it doesn’t matter, because the result is the same: a total dissolution of American society.

As for the president, he is compared to Muammar al-Qaddafi, Benito Mussolini, and Nicolae Ceausescu—doomed but unwilling to admit it. Hence, our quartet’s urgency to get to Washington. This isn’t easy to do from New York in the middle of a war, though. (New York seems somewhat stable, despite power blackouts, an apparent suspension of civilian motor vehicles with everyone biking once the nightly curfew breaks, and occasional suicide bombs.) The highway south is impenetrable, and going “anywhere near Philadelphia” is considered suicide. The four take a long detour via Pittsburgh and all the way through West Virginia, affording us an opportunity to view various images of Americana awash in blood. “Go Steelers!” graffiti next to dangling corpses is one of them.

A half tank of gasoline will cost you 300 dollars—Canadian dollars, that is. The only other mention of foreign lands is talk of getting safe passage to Greenland and, get this, Alaska.

One twilight zone sequence finds our group in a small town that the violence seems to have overlooked. It’s a paradise—until the camera tilts up to reveal armed snipers all along Main Street. Then there’s a scene in which Jesse Plemons, wearing pink sunglasses for some reason, captures our group and holds it at gunpoint. His character is the closest thing in Civil War to a typical villain, a bloodthirsty xenophobe fighting for the “real America.” In a movie filled with white-knuckle scenes, this one is the tensest, even if the character type is unusually cliché in an otherwise unpredictable film.

For all the political confusion and existential drama, it’s the action that’s going to make this movie a box office hit or not. I don’t want to give away the ending, but it is some of the most intense combat filmmaking this side of Full Metal Jacket or Black Hawk Down. The journalists are as driven to reach their brass ring as the militants are to overthrow the government. I consider myself a fan of Garland’s other work (even the somewhat maligned Men), but his large-scale craftsmanship is at a new level here. As upsetting as it is for an American to watch, Civil War is certainly bravura filmmaking.

Of course, no number of articles insisting the film isn’t really about Trump will keep people from thinking it’s really about Trump. Whether Garland and A24, the movie’s distribution company, are pouring gasoline on Americans’ flaming public discourse is certainly open for debate. I cannot deny that I have spent a night or two worrying that violence may hit the streets if the upcoming election is anything other than a clear blowout. But it’s the square peg in the round hole of the movie’s politics that adds to the unease, and a clear good side to root for would spoil that. If nothing else, Garland’s Civil War has confirmed for me that a career as a war correspondent was never in the cards. If just watching a movie about it can make me this upset, my notebook and I definitely don’t belong on a battlefield.