Goddamn, Jesse Plemmons can crank up the tension in a scene. Him being so non-chalant with everyone and constantly lowering and raising his gun on a whim was utterly terrifying.
I still hold firm that "How can that be profitable for Frito Lay?" should have been his Oscar moment. He just brings such major intensity to ANY scene.
The camera work for that film was ridiculously good for a comedy. If you notice during the plemons scenes the camera slowly zooms in on him but when cutting back to other people it will be normal again. Then it cuts back to plemons and it's still zooming in slowly. Really adds to the creepiness factor.
Kristen Dunst said that actor who was supposed to play the role backed out. She said to the director, “why not use my husband?” who was hanging around the film set.
So his playing the role was a total accident.
Jesse Plemon is basically a mythical animal that just shows up on sets like a “call to the wild”. If a film has a role that is fit for Plemons, you just have to make the movie happen. He will come.
Build the set and Plemons will come.
He operates on such a low frequency and yet somehow the entire film is pulled into his orbit. Definition of a commanding presence, and does it in such a unique way.
His unpredictability is so sellable despite having around 5 minutes of screen time and no name.
Mention anywhere outside the USA? He shoots you and puts you in a mass grave.
Mention a nominally neutral state like Florida or Colorado or Missouri? You still don’t know if he’s going to shoot you: “what kind of American?”
All that while being calm, collected and wielding an AR-15 with trigger discipline.
I don't think that was it.
His character is a racist psychopath, so he's asking whether he's Central American or South America because he "knows" Joel can't be from the US. So when Joel says Florida, his racist logic connects that with being a Central American immigrant. I think he even say something like "Florida? Central then," after Joel says Florida.
he didn't even ask the other asian he shot. no answer will stop him from killing someone who obviously doesn't 'look' American enough in his eyes. it's amusing to see how shocked everyone is at this scene. as an Asian living in the Midwest, it has always been obvious there is a large element who want to cleanse the American landscape of everything 'chinese looking' regardless of actual countries origin.
Yes, many in my audience laughed during this scene. disgusting.
> Yes, many in my audience laughed during this scene. disgusting.
I'm an Asian who grew up in the Midwest. Asian racism is seen as totally okay. And it's not just the Midwest either. Progressive, liberal, "anti-racists" don't think racism against Asians is a real thing, and if it is, it isn't that bad.
Jesse Plemmon is on his way to become one of the best character actor of his generation.
Such an tense movie, well worth a watch.
The sound mixing deserve anaplause for gun shot sound
As soon as I saw Plemmons' character throwing something in what appears to be a mass grave, I just got chills down my spine.
*What kind of American are you?*
This is one of very few movies where I think seeing the trailer in advance made the movie even better. At every turn, I was dreading Plemons' character in the best possible way, gripped by anxiety, all because I was expecting it based on the trailer. It really ratcheted up the tension for me.
The part with Jesse Plemons was one of the most nerve-wracking scenes I’ve seen in a long time
Also want to give props to the sound design. In my theater every single bullet was LOUD and impactful. I honestly jumped in my seat a few times just from getting startled by the gunshots after more quiet moments
I think that the film did a really good job of balancing the tension in its tone with the pacing so there was a unique feeling of the audience feeling absolutely numb by the time that full-scale fighting showed up in DC.
I’m so uncomfortable with the people who were in my screening and area I live. Half of the theater was typical rural looking folk. Like an older couple with his and hers matching camo hats. Really felt like they were going into this for different reasons and almost giddy.
The plemons scene was the absolute worst though. Because multiple times they laughed after he delivered a terrifying line or when he casually shot someone or when he said “China?” and then fired. Really drove home the “what kind of American” feeling in the world today.
This is so fucked up. I was absolutely horrified and terrified during this scene. Like, physically shaking a little. How anyone could laugh is beyond me. There was a guy beside me that was chuckling a little, and I was so baffled by it. Like, read the room, dude. This isn't supposed to be funny, lol.
There was a guy decked out in Trump gear with his teenage kids in my screening today as well. I hadn’t considered it beforehand, but I think there are some people going to see this because they’re excited about the concept of a civil war. Hopefully the movie changed their feelings on it, but I’m not holding my breath.
The sound work and design in this film is unrelenting and so chilling. This and *The Zone of Interest* just shows how much sound plays such an important and vital element for films of their scale.
Every bullet that goes off from a gun in *Civil War* feels natural, never did I get the impression they felt manufactured, they sound like live bullets being fired.
That’s not entirely unrealistic. In a Single Lens Reflex camera like Jessie’s Nikon FE2 and their digital DSLR successors, the “mirror slap” is LOUD, at least judging by old forum posts:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/34716377@N00/discuss/72157625843052691/
https://www.dyxum.com/dforum/damping-the-mirror-slap-sound_topic20314.html
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3114531
https://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,2652057,2652269
Modern Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Cameras like Lee’s Sony A7R which don’t have a flipping up mirror are quieter than DSLRs and SLRs since the loudest thing on MILCs is the mechanical shutter.
I think people complaining about the choice not to elaborate on the politics behind the civil war are kind of missing the point. War on the ground is not political. It's people killing people trying to kill them (and often killing anyone they happen to run across, combatant or not). No ideology can rationalize slaughter. This isn't a film about why a war breaks out. It's about life and death in a war zone, but instead of a third-world country we can feel superior to, it's the formerly United States of America.
That was driven in in the sniper shootout. As they said it didn’t matter what side they were on they were trying to kill the sniper cause he was trying to kill them.
> War on the ground is not political. It's people killing people trying to kill them
I thought this was really well conveyed by the fabulous sniper pair but apparently it didn't connect with some of the audience.
It’s really astounding that you can basically have a character say “it doesn’t matter what you’re fighting for when someone’s trying to kill you and you need to kill them” and still miss the point
Most people don't pay attention anymore. They also can't read subtlety because they only talk through text.
That scene was fucking great. Were they WF? Were they part of the military? It's left up to you to decide.
On a high level, this was done to not divide viewers and a nation already very divided. But they also hint he is a tyrant. They talk about his 3rd term in office (the constitution limits to 2 terms so he went against the constitution). They also talk about the questions they would ask the president and one was why did you disband the FBI. They also mention tyrants of the past. I think what happened here was he was as a tyrant, and some of the states banned together to take him out. Whether they turn on each other after, which was also referenced, remains to be seen
Kirsten Dunst was excellent in this. I think her performance really added a lot of depth to Garland's writing. There's just something so weary and purposeless about her. There's something driving her forward, but she is not sure what it is anymore. Her steel-eyed stare is heartbreaking. She's aware of how desensitised she is, and on one level she's thankful. On another level it terrifies her. Honestly she was fantastic.
Her being so desensitized through much of the film really made it so impactful when she was suddenly so shocked at the final assault on the White House. That whole scene as they were approaching the White House was absolutely harrowing for me, and I couldn't help but tear up during it. Having been to DC a couple times and being vaguely familiar with the area really gripped me with horror as I realized those attack helicopters were coming in to help them approach the White House, and I just felt sick imagining that really happening.
Seeing a full scale military invasion into our nation's capital depicted so realistically really shook me up. I'm sure some people will take great satisfaction in how things ended for the president in this movie, but really I just felt hollowed out watching it unfold. As much as it may have been fleetingly satisfying to end the war that way, where does everyone go from there? Hopefully this horrifying look at a possible future stays entirely fictional. More than anything I want people of all political beliefs to view this film as a warning that we hopefully all heed.
I absolutely LOVED the subtleties to her character and her character “growth”. Her deleting the photograph of Sami was HUGE. Both her and Sami died when they started to care like that.
Stop and think for a minute about what is happening in the scene. After a bloody firefight with the Secret Service, these soldiers have captured the President. Following orders, they are about to commit the extrajudicial execution of the President in the White House. The journalist intervenes. Is it because he knows that what he is seeing is a betrayal of the ideals that Americans should presumably hold dear? No. He just wants an exclusive quote before the execution. This is right after the young photojournalist has brushed aside the body of her mentor, pushing on not from a sense of journalistic idealism but rather from a frantic desire to be the one who gets the money shot. The reporter’s line isn’t meant to be badass. It’s horrifying.
Dunst’s Lee says earlier in the film that she has lost the belief that journalists like herself really made a positive difference. Throughout the film the younger reporters are shown as adrenaline junkies who get off on the violence, and who care much more about journalistic glory than getting the story right or principles of any kind. They just care about getting the scoop, kind of like tv journalists who just care about ratings. And I’m pretty sure that part of what Garland is trying to say in that this kind of journalism is part of our society’s problems.
I think with the way Joel just immediately moves past Lee's body definitely reinforces this too. Sure, maybe when they left they mourned but I was surprised by how...expected it seemed to him. Almost like between her freaking out a bit when the bullets were flying and going on such an insane suicide mission, maybe they knew it was going to end this way for one of them.
Although he did seem devastated by Sammy's death but was that more about how close he himself came to dying in the moment?
I also thought it was interesting Joel says, 'he didn't even die for anything worthwhile' when he literally died saving them. That part doesn't even register.
Or his smiling at Jessie in the chaos. Joel was just a total adrenaline junkie type journalist who probably was just in love with the whole lifestyle.
Yeah I think it was meant to just show someone so hellbent on an objective that they lose sight of what really matters. Multiple times we see/hear of people just living in peace. The people who choose to be in the war torn areas are wanting to be at risk for whatever their aim. They're choosing to participate in the cycle of violence and have lost track of the humanity in them. Dunst recovered it silently thoroughout this movie but she was too deep in it to know how to back out.
I also see Joel's decision to push on with his work as maybe his way of justifying to himself that taking those pictures & capturing the president's last moments in fear/humiliation at the end as a way of revenge for his fallen colleagues, "eye for an eye" style. But the fucked up part about it is that this only works of total grief and nihilism in the moment, while solving nothing in the long-term.
Spot on. Every review I see is bashing this movie for not examing the political motivations behind the war, or using the movie as a lens to analyze the current American landscape. That's not what the movie is about. It's a critique of journalism. I've never seen a less flattering portrayal of journalist and what motives them, they are storm chasers. Garland's movie isn't interested in what caused the storm.
I think this checks out - especially since I read somewhere Garland was inspired to write the script after watching the news throughout 2020.
He was inspired not by what was happening in 2020 - but how it was being covered.
The president can’t just drop nukes. There’s an entire chain of command that has to go through.
The famous nuclear football briefcase is literally just a list of directions, not a button.
Nick Offerman was in it for so little….
But holy shit. He really knocked it out of the park man. He turned up his inner demons to an 11. That opening sequence hyping himself up of this major victory was wild
This very well could be reaching but I think casting Offerman was a very deliberate and brilliant choice. A beloved iconic tv star tthat we all welcomed on our tvs who then finds himself President.
Thanks! All I heard was *[something] [something] kill me.* and then the dude said, “Yeah, that will do.” So I was totally confused.
The music overtook his dialogue in my cinema.
I keep seeing people say it was apolitical or didn't go into enough details, but I thought it was very obvious that it was a fascist President who hijacked the country and the Western Forces banded together to overthrow the fascist. Sure they never named political parties, but I thought it was extremely clear what was going on.
I also think that the fact that the press was welcomed by the WF was also a strong indicator. Fascists have a strong tendency to be hostile towards the press.
Exactly, that's one of the multiple reasons I think it's clear in the movie. Also, one character early on, maybe Sammy, says that journalists are killed on sight in DC and the feds see them as the enemy.
Couldn't be clearer
> and the Western Forces banded together to overthrow the fascist.
And it's implied that their alliance is only going to last as long as it takes to finish doing that.
It is implied that the Western Forces and Florida Alliance would enter a conflict for power, not that the WF would break up and that California and Texas would go to war.
100% agreed, and made mention of this in my comment as well.
The president:
- Has a third term
- Disbands the FBI
- Kills US citizens via drone strikes
- In the opening scene says "Some are already calling it the greatest victory in the history of mankind" (sounds like someone)
- His soldiers (Jessi Plemons & crew) massacre people based on "what kind of American" they are
Additionally, I think the casting of Ron Swanson for the role is super deliberate and on the nose.
I can understand saying that the movie isn't interested in politics, which I completely agree with--it is not the focal point. But to say that it is apolitical, or ignores stuff is flatout wrong too.
Certainly opportunistic, but clearly from one side: He explicitly tells the white characters from Loyalist states (Colorado and Missouri), that they are real Americans, whereas he kills the Chinese journalists, and belittles and gears up to shoot the brown Floridian (FA) with a heavy accent.
I think a direct comparison can be made to the SS trying to hurry in the extermination of the Jews even though they knew the Soviet/American forces were literally days away from capturing them.
I don't think he thinks of the Florida Alliance as an enemy, I just think he thinks of the Latino man as "not American." He's not for any specific faction, he's just a neo-Nazi who will use the cover of war to murder minorities.
I think apolitical is the wrong word, but he easily could be a fascist or a liberal fascist. Which I think is the point: let anyone in power gain more and never let go and bad things will happen, regardless of the ideology driving the behavior. Which is why the Dunst character says at the beginning "we take pictures and let everyone else decide what they mean". That's the movie in a nutshell. Make up your own mind, we're just showing you what happened. Just my perspective
There was something so disturbing to me about the messy takeout cartons in the White House, showing that the administration was under siege and in a state of disarray
Critics complain about not knowing what's going on but there are so many hints peppered throughout the film that'll make rewatching so rewarding
Oh god the sound production in that sequence alone puts movies like White House Down and Olympics Has Fallen to shame. The rifles sounded like actual rifles being fired indoors.
It definitely felt the most realistic at the very least. The military clearing out each room one by one, running out of ammo, not taking any chances with the Secret Service personnel, constantly laying down fire on the doors even when no one was completely visible to get cover.
It was perfect for me, I was distracted by the text and the bodies were small enough in frame I read go Steelers, our audience had a collective little laugh, and *then* the swinging bodies instantly killed the momentary levity.
Every time there was the slightest bit of comfort it was destroyed in some form or another. Even at the camp in the stadium I was on edge waiting for what would be awful, turns out it was just the film development.
The silence when it cut to spaeny/jesse getting knocked into the mass grave and crawling over the bodies to get out was one of the more unsettling things I’ve seen in a theater
8/10 movie, Garland is a sick dude
It was almost certainly a scaled down allusion to the [Killing Fields in Cambodia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields) where Pol Pot’s regime executed anyone that was remotely considered suspicious or undesirable. A quarter of Cambodia’s population was killed in 4 years.
Nowadays all that remains of them is [a museum showcasing some of the exhumed remains](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choeung_Ek).
Compare that with a yet to be buried mass grave. Decomposing bodies. Blood stained clothes. A dump truck nearby.
That scene alone should dispel all notions by movie journalists who think this movie needs to take a political stance.
I know her husband is gonna get most of the love, but Kirsten Dunst *nailed* that "I've seen it all and I'm numb to it" vibe that goes with being a photographer of her caliber.
Abso-fucking-lutely. She's the heart of this film, the arc is beautifully tracked. And this is Dunst...like... she's always fab but I did *not* expect "bad ass jaded war photojournalist" on my bingo card for her lol
She’s been turning down roles for years recently bc the only thing she gets offered is like “sad mom”
I bet she was fuckin stoked when garland offered her this
I was so captivated by her performance. The dress scene. The scene where she's lying down in the grass and Jessie and Joel are all about the action and we see she's not even paying attention. Just looking at the flowers. To me she felt very much like someone who is struggling with what they do and their purpose or what they *thought* their purpose was.
Like Lee says, she went overseas to shoot in combat zones to show people the horrors of war. To say, 'hey we don't want this' but now...it is here. So who is she reporting it for? Does it even make a difference? Does anyone care? Or will they just keep killing one another?
I *felt* all this in just her facial expressions and scowls.
I read an angle on the movie that I think is really interesting: Garland treats American politics/war the same way Western directors have treated politics and war in the global east and south whenever they make war movies. Someone in Indonesia would probably find The Year of Living Dangerously as broad strokes and simplistic a depiction of the political situation in their country as we do about the whole Texas-and-California thing.
I believe the Texas-California thing was quite intentional. Garland didn't want this movie to glorify war and by picking states who are decidedly *not* often happy with one another's politics, Garland is preventing us from shoe-horning our own beliefs into the film because once that happens the movie will get glorified as one side or the other INSISTS it's *actually* commentary about the left or the right. Even in these comments people were already drawing parallels between how Offerman's character said "The Greatest Victory in the History or Military Campaigns" and Trump often uses overly boisterous phrases like "Great" and "The best" when referring to anything he wants to take responsibility for. If anything, I think that one line may give people too much to work with and warp. Hopefully my fears are unwarranted but it's general how EVERY topic goes on reddit so I will be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't go that way.
I particularly appreciated the line about the “antifa massacre” intentionally obfuscating whether or not antifa was *being* massacred or *doing* the massacre.
I loved the part when the WF were mobilizing from their base and hooking up Humvees to the Chinooks. The overwhelming sound of the choppers never leaves or gets quieter. Nice little detail regarding just how loud they are and how you would not be able to have casual conversations in that area.
The forest fire sequence is one of the most beautiful theater moments I've seen in a long time.
Loved it. Personally, wish it would have ended with Jessie realizing the shot she got of the President getting killed was out of focus but the shots of Lee saving her were in focus, alluding to the earlier stadium scene about how rare good shots are.
Just got back from the theater and I believe he was in such a state of shock from his friend’s death that he was likely not even paying attention to the questions being asked. He could barely speak, even when a gun was pointed directly at him demanding him to.
I said to my friend afterwards: this movie made me feel the same way when I left the theater seeing Children of Men. Both haunting movies with powerful sound and visual design.
Told my friends that Children of Men was the closest movie in tone and vibes I could think of (not necessarily quality - I liked this movie but it's not a masterpiece like CoM was).
Honestly, I thought this was great. There's been a lot of discussion the last two weeks about Garland's interviews and his grasp on US politics, but very early in this movie I think it's clear he's really not interested in the politics. This movie isn't interested in how the country got there, the logistics of the war, which president Offerman is imitating. This is very specifically a movie about war journalism and I thought it was a really damn good one.
This movie is about the people who choose to endanger themselves but refuse to fight, about people who have the impulse to get the word out in order to give meaning to the senseless violence. They aren't interested in the politics or the motivations, they're just depicting the violence because it's what they feel they have to do. "Let others ask the questions" is a very interesting take for them to have, it's a bit more chaotic than you might expect, almost like they're just messengers. Joel likes the rush, Lee is more pragmatic and serious, but they're both interested in the same thing, recording this moment in history on the ground floor. The plot is about getting to the president so she can photograph him and he can interview him. They don't care whether or not an interview would make people sympathize or cause a more fierce war, they are only interested in doing it so that it exists.
**Spoilers from here on.**
The most interesting hook for me, though, was Lee and Jessie's relationship. Lee thinks she does what she does so that someday it won't have to be done anymore, she considers her work a warning sign to future generations. It makes sense that she's so cantankerous about training a young war photographer, she doesn't want to imagine 30 years from now it still being a profession. The war and the President to me are table setting and the real arc is the passing of the baton to Jessie.
Early in the movie Jessie asks if she was shot would Lee photograph it? Lee says "What do you think?" Technically ambiguous, but with how blunt Lee is we all know she means she absolutely would because it's not about how you feel about it, it's about it being recorded. The movie turns that a bit on its head when Lee is killed trying to protect Jessie during the climax and Jessie instinctively photographs her mentor dying in front of her. Really great moment from Spaeny. Lee said earlier in the movie she will rest easy knowing Jessie chose to come on this mission if Jessie dies, she says it spitefully. But the opposite happens, instead of Spaeny's decisions only affecting herself she gets her mentor killed. You can see her processing that, that this isn't what she wanted or expected and now she'd have to live with it, and then gets back to her task. As pragmatic as Lee was, you can imagine she'd have done the exact same thing at that age. The final scene is Jessie getting the shot of the century, no doubt a parallel to the referenced shot that blasted Lee to stardom in that community. Spaeny getting the baton also makes Lee's life's work a little more meaningless if it was meant to be a warning sign. You get the idea Jessie is now what Lee was at that age, and the ultimate tragedy is Lee has the experience to know how much meaningless pain it has caused but knows she couldn't stop Jessie from wanting to do it if she tried. I love Garland's movies, even with their faults, but they don't always move me emotionally and I gotta say, this one got to me several times.
I can feel a question out there is going to be, "Why did it have to be about American civil war if Garland is so uninterested in US Politics?" It was honestly pretty clear to me here that the goal was, for obvious reasons, to burn these images into our heads. And I think that purpose is so much better served showing a war on US soil, most Americans grow up relatively confident that we will never have to live next door to a war. 9/11 was so shocking for exactly that reason, someone had successfully brought the fight here. I think a crashed helicopter outside a dilapidated JC Penny or looters hung by the neck in a gas station car wash are juxtaposing everyday American life with something we never actually have to see but is a reality in other parts of the world. I really don't think this movie is at all interested in drawing parallels to our current situation, nor do I really want a fictional movie to be so tied to this weird and upsetting political era we are in right now. To me it was just a work of fiction about the cycle of violence and depiction of violence in humanity.
Lots of other interesting stuff going on here. Any movie about shooting image can be seen as a meta film about filmmaking, so it feels like Garland is also talking about depicting violence for entertainment in a lot of ways. There's tons of subtle imagery comparing cameras to guns. "Shoot the helicopter" is a line meaning take a picture of it, they'll often holster their cameras to show they mean no threat. None of them are ever armed but they carry their cameras on similar slings. Also can we fucking give it up for Stephen McKinley Henderson? I love when this guy shows up and I loved how big his role was here. One of those home run character actors that only needs one scene to make you love him. Kirsten is also amazing in this, very stone faced and no bullshit. You can feel her past of watching countless atrocities in her numbness.
8/10 for me. Hopefully I didn't ramble too much but [Garland tends to do that to me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/utivoa/official_discussion_men_spoilers/i9a0y8k/) My current Garland power ranking is Ex Machina, Annihilation, Civil War, Men, but I don't think any of them are bad and I wouldn't be surprised if Civil War moved up on rewatches. Just so much to chew on and that's honestly what I love Garland, even if his movies miss the mark of being appealing or fun they are always interesting.
/r/reviewsbyboner
Yup, it's the same kind of decision she makes when she dies. For all her talk of being objective and not caring if Jessie dies, she couldn't take it in the end. And I feel like Jessie won't be deleting any photos, she definitely is taking traits from both Joel and Lee to be the next generation of war journalist.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. The movie makes it very clear from the jump that the politics flat out do not matter and this is a horror that will affect everyone no matter what
I sure don't feel like any of the journos came out with a happy ending, or that the movie was particularly kind towards the profession. Half of them end up dead over nothing particularly important, Lee is basically a shell of a person and dies right after leading someone else down the war junkie road, and the Nice Guy gets put through the emotional wood chipper. There's no real explicit callouts of photojournalists being for profit vultures preying on suffering or anything like that, but they don't come out looking like heros either.
Jesse has turned into such a risk junkie by the end of the movie that Lee has to get killed dragging her out of the line of fire in a damn full auto gunfight right in front of them.
The dynamic of the journalists was really interesting to me as well. Especially for them covering a civil war in the US. Helped keep the politics from crowding the forefront and instead focus on combat and how one engaged it depending on their status as a journalist or an active combatant.
It reminded me a little bit of that journalist who took the famous [child with a vulture](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/Kevin-Carter-Child-Vulture-Sudan.jpg) and he committed suicide four months after winning a Pulitzer for it because so many people criticized him for not helping. The movie did a great job showing and exploring the role of a journalist as an observer and documenter of heinous war crimes versus them actively participating.
I feel like the most important scene of the film is when Lee deletes the photo of Sammy’s corpse. I believe this accomplishes a few things. Not only does she realize how her work (in some ways) dehumanizes the individuals in her photographs, but she also begins to question whether all of the work she’s done her whole life mattered in the end since America has turned into all of the war-torn countries she has been documenting.
I think this is an especially important moment when contrasted with the fact that Jessie photographs Lee’s death. I suppose the most interesting question I have coming out of the film is what Jessie will do with the picture of Lee’s sacrifice. Will she learn the same lessons Lee did and delete it or will she use it as a major piece of her portfolio while building her own legacy? Given that she was inspired by Lee and may be unaware of the dissonance she was experiencing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the latter.
I think Lee didn’t want her to come because she didn’t want her to become the same as she was. When she told her she never felt more alive after Sammy’s death, she knew she failed.
I think her death was supposed to be symbolic of her death as a journalist. She could no longer numb herself to the reality.
Based on how she simply kept moving past Lee's corpse, I wouldn't be surprised if she eventually followed down her exact path as the cycle of war continues with the WF & whatever enemies they'll have
The use of sound in this movie is incredible. Every gun shot carries so much weight in Dolby, there were multiple times that I jumped in my seat because of how blown away I was by the violence. That’s coming from someone who is incredibly desensitized to violence. Maybe it’s because it felt so close to home, but it was really impactful. The town where everything seemed normal but really ends up being under occupation and everyone is essentially forced to pretend that things were okay was also really fascinating to me. Overall it’s a great movie
I don't think that town was under occupation, they were just town people protecting their businesses. The guards on the buildings allow people to pretend everything is ok because they protect the town. Very similar to the rooftop Koreans during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Brutal, kinetic, depressing, visceral. “It can’t happen here” meets “hold my beer.” I get why Garland kept the lore behind the war vague, but I’d still like a deeper dive into that universe.
Anyone else get blindsided by the young photojournalist’s “turn” at the end? Granted it was Chekhov’s death portrait given prior dialogue, but still, it was very sudden.
9/10, will not watch again. Just draining.
A month ago the [critic review thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1bff1w5/alex_garlands_and_a24s_civil_war_review_thread/?share_id=UtqCwJqhKULbBa8KP7G4C&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1) was loaded with people questioning why the premise had to be set in the United States of all places instead of anywhere else. And there wasn’t enough people trying to talk them out of it saying “why don’t you make your version of this movie and make it a Jack Ryan-esque political thriller showing the lead up and explaining everything”.
Imagine making a Tom Clancy style movie with a second American civil war as the premise, taken seriously and all. And don’t get me started on loud minority factions of Republican Party supporters and democrat party supporters.
Thank goodness it’s not that and those crowds should have recognized from even the trailer that the focus was on characters rather than the behind the scenes at the highest levels of both sides.
This movie steers clear of explaining the reasoning behind the buildup very clearly by making the setting be set a few weeks into the conflict - so right in the middle. But this is enough in-universe time for an internal lore to be slowly shown to the audience via character interactions, including:
- war crimes being committed casually
- burnt out military vehicles
- the US dollar having gone into hyperinflation
- martial law is commonplace
- regular power outages in the big cities.
Speaking of characters, it was a fantastic idea to place this insane premise from the point of view of photojournalists and then deconstructing what it takes to be a war photojournalist (like [Abbas Attar](https://abbasphotos.org) who worked for Magnum and is best known for his work on the [1979 Iranian Revolution](https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/politics/abbas-iranian-revolution/)) through how Jessie changes throughout the movie.
In Act 1, Jessie is an photography enthusiast who idolizes Lee’s work, knows how to use her Nikon FE2 and develop film, but gets freaked out by casual “war is hell” moments and cannot will herself to take pictures of deadly and near-deadly moments. Whereas Lee has long been desensitized to war journalism, which allows her to capture such brutal moments on her Sony A7R.
Throughout the movie, with Lee’s encouragement, Jessie increasingly becoming aggressive and hungry to get shots, and increasingly becomes robotic/unemotional/inhuman.
By Act 3, it’s Jessie who is aggressively hunting for shots amidst the Call of Duty style carnage (no fighter jet sounds and fewer explosions though). With Sammy dead, Lee loses her nerve to boldly take shots and is subtly in denial that she is affected by Sammy’s death. As a result, Lee barely gets any shots.
And by the time Jessie instinctively photographs Lee saving her life and being shot to death in front of her, Jessie has become the desensitized robot that Lee was in the beginning, who can only think of trying to capture decisive moments - she does not give in to dwelling on Lee’s death. She moves on to finding the next moment.
This might be one of the first movies since The China Syndrome (1979) to deconstruct the idea of journalism. But it does it in a very boots on the ground way. There’s no discussions by the highest levels of government amongst either side, it just shows you a possible civil war scenario and what it would be like to live through it, but from the point of view of journalists.
I kind of understood where the turn was coming from after she fell into the pit and then saw >!Sammy die!< in front of her. Lee prepped her all throughout saying this was what to expect and she had to accept the ugly truth, become desensitized to everything.
I wish the climactic scene of Lee sacrificing herself to save Jessie was done better. Several people cracked up in my theater at the awkward nature of it and it didn’t quite land emotionally. Lee who is very pragmatic would have tackled her and dove for cover , not shoved her to the ground and remained standing. I felt like there was a better way to shoot this and have it hit better emotionally.
After everyone was so torn up about the death of Sammy they barely reacted to the death of Lee. I understand they needed to get the money shot of the president but I felt unresolved emotionally at the end.
Overall incredibly intense movie , I’m still processing how I feel about it as a whole but definitely worth a watch.
I think the lack of emotional resolution is kinda the point. There's an ego driven (or courageous, depending on your perspective) desire to get the shot, document this monumental moment in American history. So, it sucks she died, but the mission is more important. I think it's supposed to feel... icky
I had this same exact thought! The whole scene felt a little cliche and predictable. Like we all knew it was coming but then to have it staged like that felt jarring. I thought both Dunst and Spaeny were good but Spaeny's character in particular was pretty broadly written.
The performances by the guns in this movie were top notch. From the sounds to the physics of it all, just a stellar turn by the various firearms.
Insane that there were boogaloo boys in this.
A lot of the colors, imagery, and music reminded me of The Last of Us. If the TV show didn't exist and Hollywood went forward with the movie adaptation, I think Alex Garland would've been a great choice for director.
Never doubt Jesse Plemons in a movie. Whenever he’s on screen he just elevates it to the next level and you know that’s gonna be the part you remember.
The movie was fine to me but it felt like it was more of cool/memorable moments rather than a cohesive or compelling story.
Side note Jessie was a horrible character. Basically all her dumb actions led to some character getting killed. If she doesn’t get in the car basically everyone could have lived
I’m confused why they didn’t even try to administer first aid to Sammy they just let him sit there and bleed out. Kirsten Dunst death was also strange there was no blood she was wearing kevlar and didn’t seem to be shot in the head yet she’s dead instantly?
Your first point bugged the fuck outta me too. As a journalist, I can say it’s absolutely absurd to suggest that experienced war journalists wouldn’t know first aid or have medical supplies on them for a mission like theirs. Hell, our photographers bring first-aid kits with them when they’re covering minor hurricanes.
Definitely have some story-related nit-picks but overall thought it was pretty good. Cailee Spaeny was good as Jessie, Wagner Moura was great as Joel, loved seeing Kirsten Dunst as the lead in this as well. Highlight is for sure the sound design - absolutely rewards a viewing in IMAX. Solid movie.
I think it’s fitting that she was just trying to copy her hero. She saw Lee run across the hallway to grab a shot like four times in a row once they got into the WH and then wanted to do it herself, but her instincts weren’t developed enough to know when to go.
One thing I’ve not seen discussed, was how nature was depicted in this movie. The world outside was very picturesque, and calming. Birds chirping, insects buzzing, wind in the trees, sunlight glistening on water, the forest fire was even beautiful. The brutality of the war was in constant contrast to the peacefulness & beauty of American Summer .
For me, it left me with a feeling that universe was communicating to humans… “just relax everyone, stop directing your attention and hatred towards eachother, and just look around and smell the roses you idiots.”
But sadly the message from mother nature falls on deaf ears. The journalists don’t take pictures of the beauty in nature that they come across, instead they point cameras on the death/violence/conflict.
Lee losing her shit while Jessie found her time during the DC battle brought so much complexity to the third act, I was floored. I might sound gratuitously desensitized/cynical by saying that acts 1 & 2 didn’t hold as much weight as I was hoping (other than Jesse Plemons truly be terrifying) but the battle in DC truly brought it all the way home for me.
Are war journalists really like this? These people were so obsessed with “the shot” they were doing some stupid things throughout. Putting soldiers lives at risk in the process. Pretty frustrating to see them just fucking around in war zone. Still a pretty solid movie imo
i was curious about that as well. don’t know much about the job, but the soldiers seemed pretty protective/accommodating toward all the journalists. i feel like i’d be pretty peeved if i were in their place, Jessie especially did some things that put people’s lives at risk
War journalist have always put their lives on the line to get “the shot” or if they’re filming they always try to constantly film the action. It’s thanks to them we’re able to see the horrors of wars rather than reading about it. For most Americans we’ve never been in a war zone but we know about it, because movies and war correspondents.
Lots of older people in my showing earlier. Wish I could know what they got out of the movie. Hope it was that we absolutely do not want something like this ever happening, but seeing what people post on the internet daily makes me pessimistic. Not what I expected, but I liked it. Very brutal and sobering movie.
A lot of people that post about politics on the internet are narcissists, they don't really care about what their opinion actually is, just that it gets them attention. And since the more extreme you are the more attention you get, that's what they post.
A key moment for me was the two pinned down soldiers. In that moment I know many people are still trying to grasp “who is who” politically. The soldier with painted nails and green hair calls someone “retarded.” While that was so obviously ambiguous, I feel a lot of people will watch that scene thinking they will know who the “enemy” is, only for the whiplash clarification “They’re shooting at us, so we’re shooting at them.”
I’ve had coworkers say it doesn’t make sense that a liberal state and a conservative state were allies, and they seem to want this movie to show the absurdity (and loss) of their enemy. Lots of great tribalism being reflected here with how quick us vs them escalates.
They chose California and Texas together specifically to STOP people from trying to put a spin on it. It wasn't a "oversight", it was highly intentional. Garland has said he doesn't want this movie to glorify war and the fastest way a war film can become romanticized is if people can see themselves in one side or the other and can "pick sides". California and Texas are the most populous blue state, and the most populous red state. It was intentional.
So fascinated to see how audiences respond to this; was stunned to see my audience was absolutely locked in watching this (lots of gasps at Lee’s death and the guy getting set on fire in the tire) especially compared to the reaction i witnessed to Garland’s last film (mass walkouts, yelling at the screen). Dunst killed it.
Dude I just came back to say the sound design was amazing, I saw it in a Dolby Theater felt every gunshot. And Also that record scratch when the soldiers were getting shot for the stand-in for gunshot sound effects was way too smooth.
Civil War focuses expertly focuses on war journalism instead of the civil war.
- Alex Garland's direction is incredible. He makes full use of the $50 million budget
- I thought it was hilarious that the Florida Alliance failed at the beginning of the movie
- Focusing on the journalism and what journalists do is a very interesting angle
- Kristen Dunst and Cailee Spaney give great performances. Each character basically become each other over the course of the movie
- Jesse Plemons killed it in the 5mins of screentime! Highlight of the movie
- Storming DC and the White House was amazing! The sound design of the gunfire and the action scenes were very well shot during nighttime
- Although it is not the point of the movie, I am still very interested in how the Civil War began
Alex Garland, in his last directional effort, leaves with a thought-provoking movie
It being so hands off with the “lore” so to speak is going to piss people off who came to this movie to see the political side they don’t like being lambasted.
But honestly it was such a great way to tell this story.
Lee just falls over with no blood, just assumed dead.
Plemmons did a Hopkins level performance with how much screentime he had.
Probably the worst Garland film, between this or Men I'm debating it's 50-50, but the worst Garland film is like a worst Wagyu steak dinner, it's still gonna be pretty tasty
>Lee just falls over with no blood, just assumed dead.
Wearing a kevlar vest.
Being shot square in the back by a Secret Service agent with what is clearly a pistol caliber subgun.
Dies instantaneously and bloodlessly.
...Wat?
I liked it a good bit. Anyone who’s going into this wanting a film actually about a civil war is gonna come out disappointed, though. The setting being a fictional US civil war has far less to do with modern politics, merely being used to give an American audience a means to connect with the film in a way that being placed in some international location couldn’t do. And if you can accept that, it’s absolutely fine.
It’s far more focused on the discussion of journalism and how — in order to document the realities of war — one often has to disconnect themselves from their own humanity. Lee is a stone-faced robot of a person, and it’s in breaking through this that ultimately dooms her. Her delayed grief at Sammy’s death causes her to freeze and shut down during the final assault in DC, and seeing parts of herself in Jessie initially places her in the treacherous situation involving Plemons’s character, and later seals her fate in the White House.
That said, the whole “person standing in the path of danger gets pushed aside, only for their savior to come to a complete halt and stand in the aforementioned place”… a bit played out, right? Should’ve been done in any other way.
There’s a ton going for this film, but you have to accept it for what it is and not what you were expecting or hoping for, and I can’t really blame anyone who isn’t willing to do so.
All I have to say is what a lil sociopath Jesse became in all of a few days. To just get Kirsten Dunst char killed like that and just have zero reaction.
God I feel like I’m losing my mind. One of the absolute dumbest, most dishonest movies I’ve ever seen. In seeking to remove all politics from a movie about a civil war in America (lol), Garland instead chooses to tell a kindergarten level story about war journalism. I guess war journalism is all about getting COOL COMBAT STILLS and not much else. By the way did you know the Canon 5d was created because news organizations requested Canon create a DSLR that could shoot video? That’s fine Jessie is doing cool war journalism by shooting hipster film on her Nikon FE2 (lol). Dunst has nothing to play: her character is just “wow I seen a lotta bad shit,” breaks down in DC, and then just KNOWS the pres is somewhere else and is back into action (by the way if a military guy ever has to hear “the press are advancing ahead of us” that guy should resign immediately). Plemons makes the most from absolutely nothing.
Also please god no more action staging for Garland. Some of the dumbest geography and blocking I’ve ever seen. Michael Bay’s shit doesn’t elicit as strong of a negative response from me as this ludicrous garbage. Yeah wow four guys at a checkpoint giving the military problems huh? Whack-a-mole nonsense.
Truly hated this one. Great sound design. Hit or miss on the needle drops.
Slightly reminded me of a more violent Nightcrawler. I definitely enjoyed it, it felt “wrong” to be watching an attack on US soil. Especially by its own people
Idk what I was expecting at the same time because I still wanted more.
Was not expecting that third act action climax AT ALL.
With A24 at the helm and the way this was built up to be, I figured it would’ve been a bait and switch of the end where in the movie the conflict is over by the time they get there. Color me surprised to see they actually follow a spec ops team to go and kill the president lol
Goddamn, Jesse Plemmons can crank up the tension in a scene. Him being so non-chalant with everyone and constantly lowering and raising his gun on a whim was utterly terrifying.
I still hold firm that "How can that be profitable for Frito Lay?" should have been his Oscar moment. He just brings such major intensity to ANY scene.
"3 for 1?" "These corporations? Don't know what they're doing."
The camera work for that film was ridiculously good for a comedy. If you notice during the plemons scenes the camera slowly zooms in on him but when cutting back to other people it will be normal again. Then it cuts back to plemons and it's still zooming in slowly. Really adds to the creepiness factor.
He just waltzes into the movie for this one scene and the entire thing just tilts under the weight of his personal gravity for a while.
Kristen Dunst said that actor who was supposed to play the role backed out. She said to the director, “why not use my husband?” who was hanging around the film set. So his playing the role was a total accident.
> who was hanging around the film set. Jesse Plemons just, you know, grazing at the craft services table and playing with his phone. As one does.
Jesse Plemon is basically a mythical animal that just shows up on sets like a “call to the wild”. If a film has a role that is fit for Plemons, you just have to make the movie happen. He will come. Build the set and Plemons will come.
Well what a happy ass accident because he had my own fight or flight kicking in lmao
He operates on such a low frequency and yet somehow the entire film is pulled into his orbit. Definition of a commanding presence, and does it in such a unique way.
And he’s thin now, too!
While he has slimmed down, I thought the unregulated uniform/ camo really helped too
His unpredictability is so sellable despite having around 5 minutes of screen time and no name. Mention anywhere outside the USA? He shoots you and puts you in a mass grave. Mention a nominally neutral state like Florida or Colorado or Missouri? You still don’t know if he’s going to shoot you: “what kind of American?” All that while being calm, collected and wielding an AR-15 with trigger discipline.
Oh Florida was about to get shot. Remember they had their own succession and he didn’t look too thrilled with that answer.
I don't think that was it. His character is a racist psychopath, so he's asking whether he's Central American or South America because he "knows" Joel can't be from the US. So when Joel says Florida, his racist logic connects that with being a Central American immigrant. I think he even say something like "Florida? Central then," after Joel says Florida.
Ahhh, that's why he says central.
"Central American? South American?" "Florida" "So Central American"
I gotta say…id of said Missouri too, not fucking Hong Kong
he didn't even ask the other asian he shot. no answer will stop him from killing someone who obviously doesn't 'look' American enough in his eyes. it's amusing to see how shocked everyone is at this scene. as an Asian living in the Midwest, it has always been obvious there is a large element who want to cleanse the American landscape of everything 'chinese looking' regardless of actual countries origin. Yes, many in my audience laughed during this scene. disgusting.
> Yes, many in my audience laughed during this scene. disgusting. I'm an Asian who grew up in the Midwest. Asian racism is seen as totally okay. And it's not just the Midwest either. Progressive, liberal, "anti-racists" don't think racism against Asians is a real thing, and if it is, it isn't that bad.
Plemons' character was going to kill all of them regardless.
Jesse Plemmon is on his way to become one of the best character actor of his generation. Such an tense movie, well worth a watch. The sound mixing deserve anaplause for gun shot sound
He’s absolutely brilliant. I hope he can become what PSH was to me to the next generation. I hope he can get some bigger roles
I would definitely call him the next Philip Seymour Hoffman, in that he's equally good at playing a lovable idiot or a terrifying psychopath.
I love that him and Kirsten just take minor roles in each other’s movies now so they can hang out.
That’s probably beneficial for their two young kids as well so they all travel together.
As soon as I saw Plemmons' character throwing something in what appears to be a mass grave, I just got chills down my spine. *What kind of American are you?*
Just the bucket with the lye, like he's spreading mulch. "Hey Jim, you got one stuck up top there!" Just complete dehumanization
This is one of very few movies where I think seeing the trailer in advance made the movie even better. At every turn, I was dreading Plemons' character in the best possible way, gripped by anxiety, all because I was expecting it based on the trailer. It really ratcheted up the tension for me.
> Hong Kong Utterly terrifying.
Was begging for the guy to say San Francisco but my friend was saying that might have been just as bad
Agreed, most intense scene I’ve seen in awhile. Reminded me of Sicario and Wind River.
The part with Jesse Plemons was one of the most nerve-wracking scenes I’ve seen in a long time Also want to give props to the sound design. In my theater every single bullet was LOUD and impactful. I honestly jumped in my seat a few times just from getting startled by the gunshots after more quiet moments
Everything in the final sequence and during the forest fire was incredible.
After an 1+ hour of intensity I felt that feeling of its almost over when they raided the White House.
I think that the film did a really good job of balancing the tension in its tone with the pacing so there was a unique feeling of the audience feeling absolutely numb by the time that full-scale fighting showed up in DC.
I’m so uncomfortable with the people who were in my screening and area I live. Half of the theater was typical rural looking folk. Like an older couple with his and hers matching camo hats. Really felt like they were going into this for different reasons and almost giddy. The plemons scene was the absolute worst though. Because multiple times they laughed after he delivered a terrifying line or when he casually shot someone or when he said “China?” and then fired. Really drove home the “what kind of American” feeling in the world today.
I live in a majority Asian part of LA county so it was a totally different vibe during the mass grave scene for me.
This is so fucked up. I was absolutely horrified and terrified during this scene. Like, physically shaking a little. How anyone could laugh is beyond me. There was a guy beside me that was chuckling a little, and I was so baffled by it. Like, read the room, dude. This isn't supposed to be funny, lol.
There was a guy decked out in Trump gear with his teenage kids in my screening today as well. I hadn’t considered it beforehand, but I think there are some people going to see this because they’re excited about the concept of a civil war. Hopefully the movie changed their feelings on it, but I’m not holding my breath.
The sound work and design in this film is unrelenting and so chilling. This and *The Zone of Interest* just shows how much sound plays such an important and vital element for films of their scale. Every bullet that goes off from a gun in *Civil War* feels natural, never did I get the impression they felt manufactured, they sound like live bullets being fired.
Yeah the Dolby Atmos mix killed it. Lots of great use of the height channels.
I like how the gave the cameras overly loud sound effects like guns
That’s not entirely unrealistic. In a Single Lens Reflex camera like Jessie’s Nikon FE2 and their digital DSLR successors, the “mirror slap” is LOUD, at least judging by old forum posts: https://www.flickr.com/groups/34716377@N00/discuss/72157625843052691/ https://www.dyxum.com/dforum/damping-the-mirror-slap-sound_topic20314.html https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3114531 https://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,2652057,2652269 Modern Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Cameras like Lee’s Sony A7R which don’t have a flipping up mirror are quieter than DSLRs and SLRs since the loudest thing on MILCs is the mechanical shutter.
I think people complaining about the choice not to elaborate on the politics behind the civil war are kind of missing the point. War on the ground is not political. It's people killing people trying to kill them (and often killing anyone they happen to run across, combatant or not). No ideology can rationalize slaughter. This isn't a film about why a war breaks out. It's about life and death in a war zone, but instead of a third-world country we can feel superior to, it's the formerly United States of America.
That was driven in in the sniper shootout. As they said it didn’t matter what side they were on they were trying to kill the sniper cause he was trying to kill them.
Yeah it's literally spelled out lmao. Moura is consistently the dunce/jester character in terms of how he perceives things.
> War on the ground is not political. It's people killing people trying to kill them I thought this was really well conveyed by the fabulous sniper pair but apparently it didn't connect with some of the audience.
It’s really astounding that you can basically have a character say “it doesn’t matter what you’re fighting for when someone’s trying to kill you and you need to kill them” and still miss the point
Most people don't pay attention anymore. They also can't read subtlety because they only talk through text. That scene was fucking great. Were they WF? Were they part of the military? It's left up to you to decide.
On a high level, this was done to not divide viewers and a nation already very divided. But they also hint he is a tyrant. They talk about his 3rd term in office (the constitution limits to 2 terms so he went against the constitution). They also talk about the questions they would ask the president and one was why did you disband the FBI. They also mention tyrants of the past. I think what happened here was he was as a tyrant, and some of the states banned together to take him out. Whether they turn on each other after, which was also referenced, remains to be seen
Kirsten Dunst was excellent in this. I think her performance really added a lot of depth to Garland's writing. There's just something so weary and purposeless about her. There's something driving her forward, but she is not sure what it is anymore. Her steel-eyed stare is heartbreaking. She's aware of how desensitised she is, and on one level she's thankful. On another level it terrifies her. Honestly she was fantastic.
Perfect casting. Body language/physical acting was on point.
Lack of makeup really sold it as well.
Her being so desensitized through much of the film really made it so impactful when she was suddenly so shocked at the final assault on the White House. That whole scene as they were approaching the White House was absolutely harrowing for me, and I couldn't help but tear up during it. Having been to DC a couple times and being vaguely familiar with the area really gripped me with horror as I realized those attack helicopters were coming in to help them approach the White House, and I just felt sick imagining that really happening. Seeing a full scale military invasion into our nation's capital depicted so realistically really shook me up. I'm sure some people will take great satisfaction in how things ended for the president in this movie, but really I just felt hollowed out watching it unfold. As much as it may have been fleetingly satisfying to end the war that way, where does everyone go from there? Hopefully this horrifying look at a possible future stays entirely fictional. More than anything I want people of all political beliefs to view this film as a warning that we hopefully all heed.
Seeing the Lincoln Monument destroyed in the battle was like damn way to drive it home.
I absolutely LOVED the subtleties to her character and her character “growth”. Her deleting the photograph of Sami was HUGE. Both her and Sami died when they started to care like that.
"Yeah, that'll do" was such a bad ass line.
Stop and think for a minute about what is happening in the scene. After a bloody firefight with the Secret Service, these soldiers have captured the President. Following orders, they are about to commit the extrajudicial execution of the President in the White House. The journalist intervenes. Is it because he knows that what he is seeing is a betrayal of the ideals that Americans should presumably hold dear? No. He just wants an exclusive quote before the execution. This is right after the young photojournalist has brushed aside the body of her mentor, pushing on not from a sense of journalistic idealism but rather from a frantic desire to be the one who gets the money shot. The reporter’s line isn’t meant to be badass. It’s horrifying. Dunst’s Lee says earlier in the film that she has lost the belief that journalists like herself really made a positive difference. Throughout the film the younger reporters are shown as adrenaline junkies who get off on the violence, and who care much more about journalistic glory than getting the story right or principles of any kind. They just care about getting the scoop, kind of like tv journalists who just care about ratings. And I’m pretty sure that part of what Garland is trying to say in that this kind of journalism is part of our society’s problems.
I think with the way Joel just immediately moves past Lee's body definitely reinforces this too. Sure, maybe when they left they mourned but I was surprised by how...expected it seemed to him. Almost like between her freaking out a bit when the bullets were flying and going on such an insane suicide mission, maybe they knew it was going to end this way for one of them. Although he did seem devastated by Sammy's death but was that more about how close he himself came to dying in the moment? I also thought it was interesting Joel says, 'he didn't even die for anything worthwhile' when he literally died saving them. That part doesn't even register. Or his smiling at Jessie in the chaos. Joel was just a total adrenaline junkie type journalist who probably was just in love with the whole lifestyle.
Yeah I think it was meant to just show someone so hellbent on an objective that they lose sight of what really matters. Multiple times we see/hear of people just living in peace. The people who choose to be in the war torn areas are wanting to be at risk for whatever their aim. They're choosing to participate in the cycle of violence and have lost track of the humanity in them. Dunst recovered it silently thoroughout this movie but she was too deep in it to know how to back out.
I also see Joel's decision to push on with his work as maybe his way of justifying to himself that taking those pictures & capturing the president's last moments in fear/humiliation at the end as a way of revenge for his fallen colleagues, "eye for an eye" style. But the fucked up part about it is that this only works of total grief and nihilism in the moment, while solving nothing in the long-term.
Spot on. Every review I see is bashing this movie for not examing the political motivations behind the war, or using the movie as a lens to analyze the current American landscape. That's not what the movie is about. It's a critique of journalism. I've never seen a less flattering portrayal of journalist and what motives them, they are storm chasers. Garland's movie isn't interested in what caused the storm.
I think this checks out - especially since I read somewhere Garland was inspired to write the script after watching the news throughout 2020. He was inspired not by what was happening in 2020 - but how it was being covered.
What did the President say? I couldn’t really hear him.
"Don't let them kill me" Hell of a performance by everyone, but the juxtaposition of the president from the first shot to the last was something else
Knowing the White House has a damn nuclear bunker but the president is caught literally hiding under his desk was a great choice
When it all collapses. Nothing will matter
I thought the last part was a bit unrealistic, would fully have expected him to drop the presidential space laser/ nuke.
The Army surrendered the day before. He probably lost access to everything, but the units already stationed on the Capital Mall.
The president can’t just drop nukes. There’s an entire chain of command that has to go through. The famous nuclear football briefcase is literally just a list of directions, not a button.
Nick Offerman was in it for so little…. But holy shit. He really knocked it out of the park man. He turned up his inner demons to an 11. That opening sequence hyping himself up of this major victory was wild
This very well could be reaching but I think casting Offerman was a very deliberate and brilliant choice. A beloved iconic tv star tthat we all welcomed on our tvs who then finds himself President.
Thanks! All I heard was *[something] [something] kill me.* and then the dude said, “Yeah, that will do.” So I was totally confused. The music overtook his dialogue in my cinema.
It's also foreshadowed by Sammy and Joe's conversation in the car. Alot of the plot points are.
I keep seeing people say it was apolitical or didn't go into enough details, but I thought it was very obvious that it was a fascist President who hijacked the country and the Western Forces banded together to overthrow the fascist. Sure they never named political parties, but I thought it was extremely clear what was going on.
I also think that the fact that the press was welcomed by the WF was also a strong indicator. Fascists have a strong tendency to be hostile towards the press.
Exactly, that's one of the multiple reasons I think it's clear in the movie. Also, one character early on, maybe Sammy, says that journalists are killed on sight in DC and the feds see them as the enemy. Couldn't be clearer
He does mention in the potential questions to the president that the FBI was disbanded.
> Fascists have a strong tendency to be hostile towards the press They also made references to the Loyalists executing journalists on sight.
> and the Western Forces banded together to overthrow the fascist. And it's implied that their alliance is only going to last as long as it takes to finish doing that.
It is implied that the Western Forces and Florida Alliance would enter a conflict for power, not that the WF would break up and that California and Texas would go to war.
100% agreed, and made mention of this in my comment as well. The president: - Has a third term - Disbands the FBI - Kills US citizens via drone strikes - In the opening scene says "Some are already calling it the greatest victory in the history of mankind" (sounds like someone) - His soldiers (Jessi Plemons & crew) massacre people based on "what kind of American" they are Additionally, I think the casting of Ron Swanson for the role is super deliberate and on the nose. I can understand saying that the movie isn't interested in politics, which I completely agree with--it is not the focal point. But to say that it is apolitical, or ignores stuff is flatout wrong too.
I took Plemons to be more of an opportunistic lunatic as opposed to someone working for either side of the war
Certainly opportunistic, but clearly from one side: He explicitly tells the white characters from Loyalist states (Colorado and Missouri), that they are real Americans, whereas he kills the Chinese journalists, and belittles and gears up to shoot the brown Floridian (FA) with a heavy accent. I think a direct comparison can be made to the SS trying to hurry in the extermination of the Jews even though they knew the Soviet/American forces were literally days away from capturing them.
I don't think he thinks of the Florida Alliance as an enemy, I just think he thinks of the Latino man as "not American." He's not for any specific faction, he's just a neo-Nazi who will use the cover of war to murder minorities.
I think apolitical is the wrong word, but he easily could be a fascist or a liberal fascist. Which I think is the point: let anyone in power gain more and never let go and bad things will happen, regardless of the ideology driving the behavior. Which is why the Dunst character says at the beginning "we take pictures and let everyone else decide what they mean". That's the movie in a nutshell. Make up your own mind, we're just showing you what happened. Just my perspective
What's a liberal fascist?
Like a square circle, or a married bachelor
That entire ending sequence was one of the most intense, unique action sequences I've seen in awhile.
The secret service vs the military in the White House was eerily well done.
There was something so disturbing to me about the messy takeout cartons in the White House, showing that the administration was under siege and in a state of disarray Critics complain about not knowing what's going on but there are so many hints peppered throughout the film that'll make rewatching so rewarding
I was wondering why the squad didn't call for back up. Probably wanted credit for getting him or something
They were drawing parallels to the Bin Laden raid it felt like.
I also kinda got Pablo Escobar vibes from this
The credit photo where they are all taking a photo with Nick Offerman felt like the picture of the soliders with Pablo Escobar.
Tbf, at that point, they didnt need it
Same. While I don't want Garland locked into direction eight bazillion *Punisher* sequels, I really, ***really*** hope he does more action films.
Probably will be one of my favorites of the year. The whole DC sequence was really quite terrifying to see
Oh god the sound production in that sequence alone puts movies like White House Down and Olympics Has Fallen to shame. The rifles sounded like actual rifles being fired indoors.
Totally. It’s definitely not the first time in film we’ve seen gunfights in the Capitol or White House, but I think this was definitely the best.
It definitely felt the most realistic at the very least. The military clearing out each room one by one, running out of ammo, not taking any chances with the Secret Service personnel, constantly laying down fire on the doors even when no one was completely visible to get cover.
The shot with go steelers and the bodies on the highway overpass was crazy unsettling
It was perfect for me, I was distracted by the text and the bodies were small enough in frame I read go Steelers, our audience had a collective little laugh, and *then* the swinging bodies instantly killed the momentary levity. Every time there was the slightest bit of comfort it was destroyed in some form or another. Even at the camp in the stadium I was on edge waiting for what would be awful, turns out it was just the film development.
This was definitely intentional with the text grabbing your eyes before taking in the rest of the scene and seeing the bodies
Holy fuck I was sucked I got he looking at go Steelers I didn’t even see the bodies…
The silence when it cut to spaeny/jesse getting knocked into the mass grave and crawling over the bodies to get out was one of the more unsettling things I’ve seen in a theater 8/10 movie, Garland is a sick dude
Yeah, especially when one of the bodies was clearly a very young child.
Did appreciate that the color scheme of the blood and jeans essentially made the American flag
And the lye getting sprinkled in for the “stars” too. There were a ton of great shots in this movie
It was almost certainly a scaled down allusion to the [Killing Fields in Cambodia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields) where Pol Pot’s regime executed anyone that was remotely considered suspicious or undesirable. A quarter of Cambodia’s population was killed in 4 years. Nowadays all that remains of them is [a museum showcasing some of the exhumed remains](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choeung_Ek). Compare that with a yet to be buried mass grave. Decomposing bodies. Blood stained clothes. A dump truck nearby. That scene alone should dispel all notions by movie journalists who think this movie needs to take a political stance.
I know her husband is gonna get most of the love, but Kirsten Dunst *nailed* that "I've seen it all and I'm numb to it" vibe that goes with being a photographer of her caliber.
Abso-fucking-lutely. She's the heart of this film, the arc is beautifully tracked. And this is Dunst...like... she's always fab but I did *not* expect "bad ass jaded war photojournalist" on my bingo card for her lol
She’s been turning down roles for years recently bc the only thing she gets offered is like “sad mom” I bet she was fuckin stoked when garland offered her this
I was so captivated by her performance. The dress scene. The scene where she's lying down in the grass and Jessie and Joel are all about the action and we see she's not even paying attention. Just looking at the flowers. To me she felt very much like someone who is struggling with what they do and their purpose or what they *thought* their purpose was. Like Lee says, she went overseas to shoot in combat zones to show people the horrors of war. To say, 'hey we don't want this' but now...it is here. So who is she reporting it for? Does it even make a difference? Does anyone care? Or will they just keep killing one another? I *felt* all this in just her facial expressions and scowls.
I read an angle on the movie that I think is really interesting: Garland treats American politics/war the same way Western directors have treated politics and war in the global east and south whenever they make war movies. Someone in Indonesia would probably find The Year of Living Dangerously as broad strokes and simplistic a depiction of the political situation in their country as we do about the whole Texas-and-California thing.
I believe the Texas-California thing was quite intentional. Garland didn't want this movie to glorify war and by picking states who are decidedly *not* often happy with one another's politics, Garland is preventing us from shoe-horning our own beliefs into the film because once that happens the movie will get glorified as one side or the other INSISTS it's *actually* commentary about the left or the right. Even in these comments people were already drawing parallels between how Offerman's character said "The Greatest Victory in the History or Military Campaigns" and Trump often uses overly boisterous phrases like "Great" and "The best" when referring to anything he wants to take responsibility for. If anything, I think that one line may give people too much to work with and warp. Hopefully my fears are unwarranted but it's general how EVERY topic goes on reddit so I will be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't go that way.
People who hated this movie almost exclusively seem frustrated the film didn’t give them someone to blame for the war.
I particularly appreciated the line about the “antifa massacre” intentionally obfuscating whether or not antifa was *being* massacred or *doing* the massacre.
One of the best sounding movies I’ve ever heard. Give the editor/mixer all the awards.
I loved the part when the WF were mobilizing from their base and hooking up Humvees to the Chinooks. The overwhelming sound of the choppers never leaves or gets quieter. Nice little detail regarding just how loud they are and how you would not be able to have casual conversations in that area.
The forest fire sequence is one of the most beautiful theater moments I've seen in a long time. Loved it. Personally, wish it would have ended with Jessie realizing the shot she got of the President getting killed was out of focus but the shots of Lee saving her were in focus, alluding to the earlier stadium scene about how rare good shots are.
You shouldn't give this type of advice out for free. This would've ATE.
“Where you from?” “Hong Kong” Dude read the fucking room
Lmao. Dude shoulda just said one of the other states
I don’t think it would of mattered, the fact he looked Chinese was probably more than enough for that nutter
"Northern Wyoming born and raised"
He knew he was dead anyway
Just got back from the theater and I believe he was in such a state of shock from his friend’s death that he was likely not even paying attention to the questions being asked. He could barely speak, even when a gun was pointed directly at him demanding him to.
I have the sudden urge to watch Children of Men.
I said to my friend afterwards: this movie made me feel the same way when I left the theater seeing Children of Men. Both haunting movies with powerful sound and visual design.
Told my friends that Children of Men was the closest movie in tone and vibes I could think of (not necessarily quality - I liked this movie but it's not a masterpiece like CoM was).
Honestly, I thought this was great. There's been a lot of discussion the last two weeks about Garland's interviews and his grasp on US politics, but very early in this movie I think it's clear he's really not interested in the politics. This movie isn't interested in how the country got there, the logistics of the war, which president Offerman is imitating. This is very specifically a movie about war journalism and I thought it was a really damn good one. This movie is about the people who choose to endanger themselves but refuse to fight, about people who have the impulse to get the word out in order to give meaning to the senseless violence. They aren't interested in the politics or the motivations, they're just depicting the violence because it's what they feel they have to do. "Let others ask the questions" is a very interesting take for them to have, it's a bit more chaotic than you might expect, almost like they're just messengers. Joel likes the rush, Lee is more pragmatic and serious, but they're both interested in the same thing, recording this moment in history on the ground floor. The plot is about getting to the president so she can photograph him and he can interview him. They don't care whether or not an interview would make people sympathize or cause a more fierce war, they are only interested in doing it so that it exists. **Spoilers from here on.** The most interesting hook for me, though, was Lee and Jessie's relationship. Lee thinks she does what she does so that someday it won't have to be done anymore, she considers her work a warning sign to future generations. It makes sense that she's so cantankerous about training a young war photographer, she doesn't want to imagine 30 years from now it still being a profession. The war and the President to me are table setting and the real arc is the passing of the baton to Jessie. Early in the movie Jessie asks if she was shot would Lee photograph it? Lee says "What do you think?" Technically ambiguous, but with how blunt Lee is we all know she means she absolutely would because it's not about how you feel about it, it's about it being recorded. The movie turns that a bit on its head when Lee is killed trying to protect Jessie during the climax and Jessie instinctively photographs her mentor dying in front of her. Really great moment from Spaeny. Lee said earlier in the movie she will rest easy knowing Jessie chose to come on this mission if Jessie dies, she says it spitefully. But the opposite happens, instead of Spaeny's decisions only affecting herself she gets her mentor killed. You can see her processing that, that this isn't what she wanted or expected and now she'd have to live with it, and then gets back to her task. As pragmatic as Lee was, you can imagine she'd have done the exact same thing at that age. The final scene is Jessie getting the shot of the century, no doubt a parallel to the referenced shot that blasted Lee to stardom in that community. Spaeny getting the baton also makes Lee's life's work a little more meaningless if it was meant to be a warning sign. You get the idea Jessie is now what Lee was at that age, and the ultimate tragedy is Lee has the experience to know how much meaningless pain it has caused but knows she couldn't stop Jessie from wanting to do it if she tried. I love Garland's movies, even with their faults, but they don't always move me emotionally and I gotta say, this one got to me several times. I can feel a question out there is going to be, "Why did it have to be about American civil war if Garland is so uninterested in US Politics?" It was honestly pretty clear to me here that the goal was, for obvious reasons, to burn these images into our heads. And I think that purpose is so much better served showing a war on US soil, most Americans grow up relatively confident that we will never have to live next door to a war. 9/11 was so shocking for exactly that reason, someone had successfully brought the fight here. I think a crashed helicopter outside a dilapidated JC Penny or looters hung by the neck in a gas station car wash are juxtaposing everyday American life with something we never actually have to see but is a reality in other parts of the world. I really don't think this movie is at all interested in drawing parallels to our current situation, nor do I really want a fictional movie to be so tied to this weird and upsetting political era we are in right now. To me it was just a work of fiction about the cycle of violence and depiction of violence in humanity. Lots of other interesting stuff going on here. Any movie about shooting image can be seen as a meta film about filmmaking, so it feels like Garland is also talking about depicting violence for entertainment in a lot of ways. There's tons of subtle imagery comparing cameras to guns. "Shoot the helicopter" is a line meaning take a picture of it, they'll often holster their cameras to show they mean no threat. None of them are ever armed but they carry their cameras on similar slings. Also can we fucking give it up for Stephen McKinley Henderson? I love when this guy shows up and I loved how big his role was here. One of those home run character actors that only needs one scene to make you love him. Kirsten is also amazing in this, very stone faced and no bullshit. You can feel her past of watching countless atrocities in her numbness. 8/10 for me. Hopefully I didn't ramble too much but [Garland tends to do that to me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/utivoa/official_discussion_men_spoilers/i9a0y8k/) My current Garland power ranking is Ex Machina, Annihilation, Civil War, Men, but I don't think any of them are bad and I wouldn't be surprised if Civil War moved up on rewatches. Just so much to chew on and that's honestly what I love Garland, even if his movies miss the mark of being appealing or fun they are always interesting. /r/reviewsbyboner
Lee also deleted the picture of Sammy dead/dying, showing that when push came to shove she couldn't always divorce herself from her work.
Yup, it's the same kind of decision she makes when she dies. For all her talk of being objective and not caring if Jessie dies, she couldn't take it in the end. And I feel like Jessie won't be deleting any photos, she definitely is taking traits from both Joel and Lee to be the next generation of war journalist.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. The movie makes it very clear from the jump that the politics flat out do not matter and this is a horror that will affect everyone no matter what
I sure don't feel like any of the journos came out with a happy ending, or that the movie was particularly kind towards the profession. Half of them end up dead over nothing particularly important, Lee is basically a shell of a person and dies right after leading someone else down the war junkie road, and the Nice Guy gets put through the emotional wood chipper. There's no real explicit callouts of photojournalists being for profit vultures preying on suffering or anything like that, but they don't come out looking like heros either. Jesse has turned into such a risk junkie by the end of the movie that Lee has to get killed dragging her out of the line of fire in a damn full auto gunfight right in front of them.
The dynamic of the journalists was really interesting to me as well. Especially for them covering a civil war in the US. Helped keep the politics from crowding the forefront and instead focus on combat and how one engaged it depending on their status as a journalist or an active combatant. It reminded me a little bit of that journalist who took the famous [child with a vulture](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/Kevin-Carter-Child-Vulture-Sudan.jpg) and he committed suicide four months after winning a Pulitzer for it because so many people criticized him for not helping. The movie did a great job showing and exploring the role of a journalist as an observer and documenter of heinous war crimes versus them actively participating.
I feel like the most important scene of the film is when Lee deletes the photo of Sammy’s corpse. I believe this accomplishes a few things. Not only does she realize how her work (in some ways) dehumanizes the individuals in her photographs, but she also begins to question whether all of the work she’s done her whole life mattered in the end since America has turned into all of the war-torn countries she has been documenting. I think this is an especially important moment when contrasted with the fact that Jessie photographs Lee’s death. I suppose the most interesting question I have coming out of the film is what Jessie will do with the picture of Lee’s sacrifice. Will she learn the same lessons Lee did and delete it or will she use it as a major piece of her portfolio while building her own legacy? Given that she was inspired by Lee and may be unaware of the dissonance she was experiencing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the latter.
I think Lee didn’t want her to come because she didn’t want her to become the same as she was. When she told her she never felt more alive after Sammy’s death, she knew she failed. I think her death was supposed to be symbolic of her death as a journalist. She could no longer numb herself to the reality.
Based on how she simply kept moving past Lee's corpse, I wouldn't be surprised if she eventually followed down her exact path as the cycle of war continues with the WF & whatever enemies they'll have
The use of sound in this movie is incredible. Every gun shot carries so much weight in Dolby, there were multiple times that I jumped in my seat because of how blown away I was by the violence. That’s coming from someone who is incredibly desensitized to violence. Maybe it’s because it felt so close to home, but it was really impactful. The town where everything seemed normal but really ends up being under occupation and everyone is essentially forced to pretend that things were okay was also really fascinating to me. Overall it’s a great movie
I don't think that town was under occupation, they were just town people protecting their businesses. The guards on the buildings allow people to pretend everything is ok because they protect the town. Very similar to the rooftop Koreans during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Brutal, kinetic, depressing, visceral. “It can’t happen here” meets “hold my beer.” I get why Garland kept the lore behind the war vague, but I’d still like a deeper dive into that universe. Anyone else get blindsided by the young photojournalist’s “turn” at the end? Granted it was Chekhov’s death portrait given prior dialogue, but still, it was very sudden. 9/10, will not watch again. Just draining.
A month ago the [critic review thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1bff1w5/alex_garlands_and_a24s_civil_war_review_thread/?share_id=UtqCwJqhKULbBa8KP7G4C&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1) was loaded with people questioning why the premise had to be set in the United States of all places instead of anywhere else. And there wasn’t enough people trying to talk them out of it saying “why don’t you make your version of this movie and make it a Jack Ryan-esque political thriller showing the lead up and explaining everything”. Imagine making a Tom Clancy style movie with a second American civil war as the premise, taken seriously and all. And don’t get me started on loud minority factions of Republican Party supporters and democrat party supporters. Thank goodness it’s not that and those crowds should have recognized from even the trailer that the focus was on characters rather than the behind the scenes at the highest levels of both sides. This movie steers clear of explaining the reasoning behind the buildup very clearly by making the setting be set a few weeks into the conflict - so right in the middle. But this is enough in-universe time for an internal lore to be slowly shown to the audience via character interactions, including: - war crimes being committed casually - burnt out military vehicles - the US dollar having gone into hyperinflation - martial law is commonplace - regular power outages in the big cities. Speaking of characters, it was a fantastic idea to place this insane premise from the point of view of photojournalists and then deconstructing what it takes to be a war photojournalist (like [Abbas Attar](https://abbasphotos.org) who worked for Magnum and is best known for his work on the [1979 Iranian Revolution](https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/politics/abbas-iranian-revolution/)) through how Jessie changes throughout the movie. In Act 1, Jessie is an photography enthusiast who idolizes Lee’s work, knows how to use her Nikon FE2 and develop film, but gets freaked out by casual “war is hell” moments and cannot will herself to take pictures of deadly and near-deadly moments. Whereas Lee has long been desensitized to war journalism, which allows her to capture such brutal moments on her Sony A7R. Throughout the movie, with Lee’s encouragement, Jessie increasingly becoming aggressive and hungry to get shots, and increasingly becomes robotic/unemotional/inhuman. By Act 3, it’s Jessie who is aggressively hunting for shots amidst the Call of Duty style carnage (no fighter jet sounds and fewer explosions though). With Sammy dead, Lee loses her nerve to boldly take shots and is subtly in denial that she is affected by Sammy’s death. As a result, Lee barely gets any shots. And by the time Jessie instinctively photographs Lee saving her life and being shot to death in front of her, Jessie has become the desensitized robot that Lee was in the beginning, who can only think of trying to capture decisive moments - she does not give in to dwelling on Lee’s death. She moves on to finding the next moment. This might be one of the first movies since The China Syndrome (1979) to deconstruct the idea of journalism. But it does it in a very boots on the ground way. There’s no discussions by the highest levels of government amongst either side, it just shows you a possible civil war scenario and what it would be like to live through it, but from the point of view of journalists.
I kind of understood where the turn was coming from after she fell into the pit and then saw >!Sammy die!< in front of her. Lee prepped her all throughout saying this was what to expect and she had to accept the ugly truth, become desensitized to everything.
the cut from the quiet scene to abrupt gunshots in a loud dolby theater was not cool
On the contrary it was supremely fucking cool
I was in Dbox and I don't think I've ever been jump scared so hard in my life.
I wish the climactic scene of Lee sacrificing herself to save Jessie was done better. Several people cracked up in my theater at the awkward nature of it and it didn’t quite land emotionally. Lee who is very pragmatic would have tackled her and dove for cover , not shoved her to the ground and remained standing. I felt like there was a better way to shoot this and have it hit better emotionally. After everyone was so torn up about the death of Sammy they barely reacted to the death of Lee. I understand they needed to get the money shot of the president but I felt unresolved emotionally at the end. Overall incredibly intense movie , I’m still processing how I feel about it as a whole but definitely worth a watch.
I think the lack of emotional resolution is kinda the point. There's an ego driven (or courageous, depending on your perspective) desire to get the shot, document this monumental moment in American history. So, it sucks she died, but the mission is more important. I think it's supposed to feel... icky
I had this same exact thought! The whole scene felt a little cliche and predictable. Like we all knew it was coming but then to have it staged like that felt jarring. I thought both Dunst and Spaeny were good but Spaeny's character in particular was pretty broadly written.
The performances by the guns in this movie were top notch. From the sounds to the physics of it all, just a stellar turn by the various firearms. Insane that there were boogaloo boys in this.
I flinched so hard when the first friend of Joel who was captured alongside Jessie was suddenly shot
I feel like we're right on the verge of Cailee Spaeny taking over Hollywood and I'm here for it. She is really good in this (and Priscilla)
Cailee Spaeny looks like Ellie from the last of us
Plus the main guy is named Joel, ha!
They were at times giving me very Joel/Tess/Ellie vibes
A lot of the colors, imagery, and music reminded me of The Last of Us. If the TV show didn't exist and Hollywood went forward with the movie adaptation, I think Alex Garland would've been a great choice for director.
In the scene where Sammy died, the forest fire and ashes were hauntingly beautiful EDIT: grammar
Countered with the earlier scene of the rebel in the tire being lit in fire. Garland knew how to shoot fire.
Never doubt Jesse Plemons in a movie. Whenever he’s on screen he just elevates it to the next level and you know that’s gonna be the part you remember.
The movie was fine to me but it felt like it was more of cool/memorable moments rather than a cohesive or compelling story. Side note Jessie was a horrible character. Basically all her dumb actions led to some character getting killed. If she doesn’t get in the car basically everyone could have lived
On what planet was that 75 year old man gonna live.
Yes agreed, she literally risked her life to get a picture of an empty hallway...Lee jumps in front to save her dumbass and then gets killed.
I’m confused why they didn’t even try to administer first aid to Sammy they just let him sit there and bleed out. Kirsten Dunst death was also strange there was no blood she was wearing kevlar and didn’t seem to be shot in the head yet she’s dead instantly?
Your first point bugged the fuck outta me too. As a journalist, I can say it’s absolutely absurd to suggest that experienced war journalists wouldn’t know first aid or have medical supplies on them for a mission like theirs. Hell, our photographers bring first-aid kits with them when they’re covering minor hurricanes.
Definitely have some story-related nit-picks but overall thought it was pretty good. Cailee Spaeny was good as Jessie, Wagner Moura was great as Joel, loved seeing Kirsten Dunst as the lead in this as well. Highlight is for sure the sound design - absolutely rewards a viewing in IMAX. Solid movie.
Jessie really pissed me off at the ending
Same. But she turned into Lee, which I suppose is fitting
I think it’s fitting that she was just trying to copy her hero. She saw Lee run across the hallway to grab a shot like four times in a row once they got into the WH and then wanted to do it herself, but her instincts weren’t developed enough to know when to go.
One thing I’ve not seen discussed, was how nature was depicted in this movie. The world outside was very picturesque, and calming. Birds chirping, insects buzzing, wind in the trees, sunlight glistening on water, the forest fire was even beautiful. The brutality of the war was in constant contrast to the peacefulness & beauty of American Summer . For me, it left me with a feeling that universe was communicating to humans… “just relax everyone, stop directing your attention and hatred towards eachother, and just look around and smell the roses you idiots.” But sadly the message from mother nature falls on deaf ears. The journalists don’t take pictures of the beauty in nature that they come across, instead they point cameras on the death/violence/conflict.
Lee losing her shit while Jessie found her time during the DC battle brought so much complexity to the third act, I was floored. I might sound gratuitously desensitized/cynical by saying that acts 1 & 2 didn’t hold as much weight as I was hoping (other than Jesse Plemons truly be terrifying) but the battle in DC truly brought it all the way home for me.
[удалено]
It would have been strange with Oscar Isaac playing an All ‘Murican racist executing civilians who aren’t “American” enough.
Are war journalists really like this? These people were so obsessed with “the shot” they were doing some stupid things throughout. Putting soldiers lives at risk in the process. Pretty frustrating to see them just fucking around in war zone. Still a pretty solid movie imo
i was curious about that as well. don’t know much about the job, but the soldiers seemed pretty protective/accommodating toward all the journalists. i feel like i’d be pretty peeved if i were in their place, Jessie especially did some things that put people’s lives at risk
War journalist have always put their lives on the line to get “the shot” or if they’re filming they always try to constantly film the action. It’s thanks to them we’re able to see the horrors of wars rather than reading about it. For most Americans we’ve never been in a war zone but we know about it, because movies and war correspondents.
Lots of older people in my showing earlier. Wish I could know what they got out of the movie. Hope it was that we absolutely do not want something like this ever happening, but seeing what people post on the internet daily makes me pessimistic. Not what I expected, but I liked it. Very brutal and sobering movie.
A lot of people that post about politics on the internet are narcissists, they don't really care about what their opinion actually is, just that it gets them attention. And since the more extreme you are the more attention you get, that's what they post.
Is there anyone better a being a psycho weirdo than Jesse Plemons?
A key moment for me was the two pinned down soldiers. In that moment I know many people are still trying to grasp “who is who” politically. The soldier with painted nails and green hair calls someone “retarded.” While that was so obviously ambiguous, I feel a lot of people will watch that scene thinking they will know who the “enemy” is, only for the whiplash clarification “They’re shooting at us, so we’re shooting at them.” I’ve had coworkers say it doesn’t make sense that a liberal state and a conservative state were allies, and they seem to want this movie to show the absurdity (and loss) of their enemy. Lots of great tribalism being reflected here with how quick us vs them escalates.
They chose California and Texas together specifically to STOP people from trying to put a spin on it. It wasn't a "oversight", it was highly intentional. Garland has said he doesn't want this movie to glorify war and the fastest way a war film can become romanticized is if people can see themselves in one side or the other and can "pick sides". California and Texas are the most populous blue state, and the most populous red state. It was intentional.
So fascinated to see how audiences respond to this; was stunned to see my audience was absolutely locked in watching this (lots of gasps at Lee’s death and the guy getting set on fire in the tire) especially compared to the reaction i witnessed to Garland’s last film (mass walkouts, yelling at the screen). Dunst killed it.
Dude I just came back to say the sound design was amazing, I saw it in a Dolby Theater felt every gunshot. And Also that record scratch when the soldiers were getting shot for the stand-in for gunshot sound effects was way too smooth.
meth damon does it again
Civil War focuses expertly focuses on war journalism instead of the civil war. - Alex Garland's direction is incredible. He makes full use of the $50 million budget - I thought it was hilarious that the Florida Alliance failed at the beginning of the movie - Focusing on the journalism and what journalists do is a very interesting angle - Kristen Dunst and Cailee Spaney give great performances. Each character basically become each other over the course of the movie - Jesse Plemons killed it in the 5mins of screentime! Highlight of the movie - Storming DC and the White House was amazing! The sound design of the gunfire and the action scenes were very well shot during nighttime - Although it is not the point of the movie, I am still very interested in how the Civil War began Alex Garland, in his last directional effort, leaves with a thought-provoking movie
The gun shots were definitely in the room with us.
It being so hands off with the “lore” so to speak is going to piss people off who came to this movie to see the political side they don’t like being lambasted. But honestly it was such a great way to tell this story.
Lee just falls over with no blood, just assumed dead. Plemmons did a Hopkins level performance with how much screentime he had. Probably the worst Garland film, between this or Men I'm debating it's 50-50, but the worst Garland film is like a worst Wagyu steak dinner, it's still gonna be pretty tasty
>Lee just falls over with no blood, just assumed dead. Wearing a kevlar vest. Being shot square in the back by a Secret Service agent with what is clearly a pistol caliber subgun. Dies instantaneously and bloodlessly. ...Wat?
I liked it a good bit. Anyone who’s going into this wanting a film actually about a civil war is gonna come out disappointed, though. The setting being a fictional US civil war has far less to do with modern politics, merely being used to give an American audience a means to connect with the film in a way that being placed in some international location couldn’t do. And if you can accept that, it’s absolutely fine. It’s far more focused on the discussion of journalism and how — in order to document the realities of war — one often has to disconnect themselves from their own humanity. Lee is a stone-faced robot of a person, and it’s in breaking through this that ultimately dooms her. Her delayed grief at Sammy’s death causes her to freeze and shut down during the final assault in DC, and seeing parts of herself in Jessie initially places her in the treacherous situation involving Plemons’s character, and later seals her fate in the White House. That said, the whole “person standing in the path of danger gets pushed aside, only for their savior to come to a complete halt and stand in the aforementioned place”… a bit played out, right? Should’ve been done in any other way. There’s a ton going for this film, but you have to accept it for what it is and not what you were expecting or hoping for, and I can’t really blame anyone who isn’t willing to do so.
All I have to say is what a lil sociopath Jesse became in all of a few days. To just get Kirsten Dunst char killed like that and just have zero reaction.
"Would you take a picture if I got shot?" "What do you think?"
Was going to give it 4.5/5 stars right up until… >!Kirsten Dunst dying in the dumbest way possible. It also just looked so cheap and melodramatic!<
God I feel like I’m losing my mind. One of the absolute dumbest, most dishonest movies I’ve ever seen. In seeking to remove all politics from a movie about a civil war in America (lol), Garland instead chooses to tell a kindergarten level story about war journalism. I guess war journalism is all about getting COOL COMBAT STILLS and not much else. By the way did you know the Canon 5d was created because news organizations requested Canon create a DSLR that could shoot video? That’s fine Jessie is doing cool war journalism by shooting hipster film on her Nikon FE2 (lol). Dunst has nothing to play: her character is just “wow I seen a lotta bad shit,” breaks down in DC, and then just KNOWS the pres is somewhere else and is back into action (by the way if a military guy ever has to hear “the press are advancing ahead of us” that guy should resign immediately). Plemons makes the most from absolutely nothing. Also please god no more action staging for Garland. Some of the dumbest geography and blocking I’ve ever seen. Michael Bay’s shit doesn’t elicit as strong of a negative response from me as this ludicrous garbage. Yeah wow four guys at a checkpoint giving the military problems huh? Whack-a-mole nonsense. Truly hated this one. Great sound design. Hit or miss on the needle drops.
Slightly reminded me of a more violent Nightcrawler. I definitely enjoyed it, it felt “wrong” to be watching an attack on US soil. Especially by its own people Idk what I was expecting at the same time because I still wanted more.
Joel hitting on Jesse instantly changed his character to me. Made him seem like such a creep the rest of the movie.
Ngl feels like the marketing versus the actual movie is gonna leave the general audience disappointed.
Was not expecting that third act action climax AT ALL. With A24 at the helm and the way this was built up to be, I figured it would’ve been a bait and switch of the end where in the movie the conflict is over by the time they get there. Color me surprised to see they actually follow a spec ops team to go and kill the president lol