Regarding his motion pictures, British filmmaker Alex Garland’s creative focus has been primarily on science fiction and horror. His initial claim to fame was literary, a novel titled “The Beach,” about an idyllic tourist paradise that really wasn’t. The book bobs in the watery tribal wake of “Lord Of The Flies” and was made into a Leonardo DiCaprio movie directed by Danny Boyle.
Garland eventually wrote the screenplay for “28 Days Later,” a terrific post-apocalyptic horror film also directed by Boyle, which gave its star, Cillian Murphy, a foothold with international audiences. Garland soon penned the script for “Sunshine,” a superb psychological thriller rooted in science fiction. Murphy stars in that as well. Boyle directs again. Creative friends taking care of each other clearly made for good movies.
Soon the clarion call for Garland to direct rang out and we were treated to “Ex Machina,” an outstanding work about artificial intelligence, which Garland also wrote. It’s not quite HAL 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but it’s still darn believable. More double duty followed for Garland with “Annihilation” and “Men.” His unique visions of the effects of cosmic travel and the frightening sensibilities of folk horror, respectively, are both worth a look.
Now we have writer-director Garland’s “Civil War,” which is essentially about journalists covering not only the fracturing of the American psyche, but also the fragmentation of the democracy that has kept the United States functioning for more than two centuries.
Journalists chronicling wars are the focus of eight features I like. They are Alfred Hitchcock’s “Foreign Correspondent” (1940), William Wellman’s “The Story Of Ernie Pyle” (1945), “Haskell Wexler’s “Medium Cool” (1969), Peter Weir’s “The Year Of Living Dangerously” (1982), Roger Spottiswoode’s “Under Fire” (1983), Roland Joffe’s “The Killing Fields” (1984), Oliver Stone’s “Salvador” (1986), and Michael Winterbottom’s “Welcome To Sarajevo” (1997).
“Civil War” opened in theaters on April 12; therefore, never let it be said that studio decision-makers don’t know their history. On that date in 1861, the American Civil War began.
In the very near future, the United States is in chaos. A civil war has begun because the sitting President has given himself a third term. There’s fighting possibly everywhere in the country, but we don’t know fully because the film has a narrow field of vision. We are advised that California and Texas have united into an entity called the Western Forces that is rolling towards Washington, D.C. in order to overthrow the illegitimate government. New York City is essentially a ghost town. As they often do in war zones, journalists are hanging out at a hotel — this one’s in Manhattan — eager for information.
Three of the professionals and a neophyte, decide to take a road trip to D.C. in order to try to get an interview with the President. The newcomer is Jessie, a naive twenty-something woman, who one of the seasoned writers, a fellow named Joel (acted by Wagner Moura), thinks is pretty. He hopes he might have a chance with her. You know what I mean. Jessie is played by Cailee Spaeny, who is out of her element in the movie.
The stalwarts are a veteran reporter named Sammy and a photojournalist named Lee. Sammy writes for the New York Times. Wonderfully acted by Stephen McKinley Henderson, the Tony Award-nominated Broadway actor and Theater Professor Emeritus at SUNY Buffalo, Sammy has the perfect mix of hope, humor, and professionalism. The photographer is Lee, an outstanding Kirsten Dunst, who projects a world-weariness that is palpable. However, she still has a thirst for news and knowledge. Jessie has studied Lee’s life. This makes Lee uncomfortable, and she’s not sure it’s a good idea for the youngster to go on the road with the team. But Lee is a pro; therefore, she will keep a protective eye on the newcomer.
All four load themselves into a van and begin a journey that will be fraught with danger. Writer-director Garland fills the story with horror movie tropes. Along the way, there’s a deep pit into which dead bodies have been dumped. Nameless characters are tortured. This works for a while, but because the road trip is nothing but horror movie-style jolts, Garland’s film unravels.
A psychopath near some woods seems to be fighting his own civil war. He decides to quiz a couple of men the journalists have come across on the road, regarding what kind of Americans they are. Suffice it to say: they aren’t the right kind. “Civil War” wallows in excessive cruelty, violence, and brutality for one reason and one reason only. Garland has crafted a story so vague, so utterly without political ideas, that he has nowhere to go except down a path of relentless bloodlust. He mistakenly fuses the story he’s telling with the horror genre.
Garland has made a movie straight from the “aha school of filmmaking.” The fascist-controlled White House is surrounded by a giant wall. Aha. Gasoline can be purchased for 300 Canadian dollars. Aha. Nobody files a story or does anything with the photographs they take. Aha.
The amateur Jessie, who considers herself an artist — she shoots pictures with black and white rolls of film — does something so utterly stupid on the road that anyone with an ounce of intelligence would insist she go back to Manhattan. Or go stay in the weird little village where the citizens act as if nothing eventful is happening.
Jessie is responsible for the deaths of a number of people. However, no one says a word to her about the immature chance she took. I didn’t believe the reaction for a second, especially Lee ignoring the facts right in front of her.
The production didn’t have a budget for an epic invasion of Washington. The result is a cheesy escapade in the White House. Nick Offerman, a genuinely great actor, is criminally wasted in the role of the President turned dictator. Why was he still there? We learned in Nicolas Cage’s “National Treasure: Book Of Secrets” that there are tunnels in and out of the White House. There truly are. Garland explains nothing, or perhaps he simply doesn’t care. He’s been too eager to soak everything in blood and make obvious points about possible American fascism.
With about 30 minutes to go in the film, I realized that Garland didn’t have an intelligent resolution on the horizon. “Civil War” simply flops around through White House hallways until its uninteresting ending. What’s the message? Use black and white film in your old-school Nikon? The movie’s lack of imagination is tedious.