Civil War (Garland, 2024)

“Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.” _- Abraham Lincoln.

Civil War assiduously avoids providing any sort of backstory that might lead to a judgment about the sides warring, because, no doubt, if it did, there is no way the film could be made. But that decision makes the movie cynical and pointless. War is hell. Who knew?

Here’s the thing, by framing around the journalists it tries to co-opt the journalist’s credo. We don’t take sides. We remain neutral. And I don’t really want that in my art. (Truthfully, I don’t really want it in my journalism.) Because no decision is a decision. Refusing to take a side, is taking a side…that the status quo is acceptable. And saying that maybe neither side is right is not the same thing as saying it doesn’t matter if either side is right or wrong…or even slightly more right or significantly more wrong. And I kinda, sorta — shocking thought here — think it does. 

Heck, the movie even has some self-examination for the journalists. How crass that with people dying they care only about being the one to get the money shot or the quote. Imagine being willing to critique the journalists for being self-interested in documenting the war but having no interest in critiquing those starting it or fighting it. 

Don’t get me wrong. Alex Garland is immensely talented, and much like in Ex Machina, he writes in such a way as to embed significance and weight to individual scenes or conversations that far exceed the seriousness of the movie that contains them. And hey, if all that philosophical pretension amounts to is two hours of staring at Alicia Viakender’s breasts, oh well. But when a film takes two hours to desensitize us to bodies being tortured, mass graves, and human cruelty. I do think something just a little offensive is happening. The film bludgeons us with shocking imagery, practically screaming to get and hold our attention. But once it has our attention, it cares not a whit to direct it in any particular direction.

But hey, maybe that’s just me. Maybe people will see this for The Purge or The Hunt with a nicer pedigree. Serious themes wrapped up in a slick, commercial package, but more of a button pushing provocation than an ambitious or successful work of art.