I know, I know, I know.
The New York Times raved about it. Forbes says it’s not what you think it’s about. Vulture says it’s diabolically clever.”
I hated it.
Well, not so much hated as annoyed by.
Listen, I love action movies. Hell, I’ve already seen Equalizer 3 five times. I’m a war fan buff from way back. I tell people, only half in jest, that I rate movies on my AK47 scale.
Oh, and movies about war photographers under fire? Let’s just say they broke the mold when the made “Under Fire” with Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman.
But “Civil War” annoyed me. And to explain why I’ll take you back to two 1980s-era movies about war photographers under fire (though not “Under Fire”).
“Salvador” was a critically acclaimed Oliver Stone directed flick starring James Woods as a down on his luck photojournalist who goes to El Salvador at a time when the country’s U.S.-backed dictatorship was killing nuns and priests.
It takes no time at all to figure out that the priest killers were the bad guys and the rebels were to good guys.
Cut to ‘Last Plane Out,” a not so critically acclaimed film with Jan-Michael Vincent as an American journalist who forms a friendship with Nicaraguan dictator Anastasia Somoza and covers that revolution from a decidedly pro-Somoza point of view.
Somoza, good guy. Rebels, bad guys.
Will somebody please tell me who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in “Civil War”?
As far as I could tell there were exactly two bad guys in “Civil War”.
One was the American president who, apparently, seized a third term in violation of the constitution and thereby (maybe, maybe not) triggered this civil war.
And the other was a really creepy, pink-colored sun-glassed soldier who was delighted to murder civilians if they were not the “right” kind of Americans
Well, what about the rest of the thousands of combatants who spent much of the movie mindlessly exchanging rapid fire in uniforms that seemed vaguely similar?
Which side were we supposed to root for?
To care about?
Director Alex Garland doesn’t give us a clue.
Which is another way of saying that he doesn’t give us any reason to care about his movie.
Know your enemy? Please! Who the hell is the enemy?
Set aside the absurdity of deep red Texas and deep blue California joining in common cause to destroy the union. Sure, I’m glad that the libs and the MAGAs finally find something to agree on.
But really?
In the absence of a side you can relate to and a side you ought to detest, all you have is a movie about faceless soldiers killing each other for…who the hell knows why?
And that’s the problem with “Civil War.”
It is the ultimate shoot-em-up epic for the sole sake of making a shoot-em-up epic.
A movie without a soul. Without heart. Without a reason to care about who’s doing all the shooting and why.
Listen, I’ll put up with a lot for the sake of sitting in a dark theater and eating popcorn.
(Although, come to think on it, I could manage to sit through neither “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once,” or “Poor Things.” So what the hell do I know?)
Yes, I’ll grant you that, for the first time in a very long time, the journalists are the good guys. And that’s, um, good.
But I’ve gotta credulity problem here.
In what war in the history of warfare does the military escort journalists through the most intense combat imaginable precisely like mother hens protecting their chicks?
Gene Hackman’s “Under Fire” character – murdered by a U.S.-financed Nicaraguan soldier – would have killed for that kind of protection. Hell, the Army couldn’t keep Ernie Pyle, arguably the most beloved war correspondent in history, alive.
Oh, and the reason for all of this extraordinary military protection? So our heroes could get safely into the White House for the express purpose of witnessing, and recording the summary execution of the captured President.
But only after one of the journalists insisted on getting a final quote.
More than 100 journalists have been killed covering the war in Gaza. Where the hell was their military escort?
Many journalists are killed in combat because they may have witnessed something that somebody else doesn’t want reported. Certainly not because somebody in uniform wanted them to witness an atrocity.
No, “Civil War” irritated me because director Garland tried so hard to walk a tightrope between right and wrong that his bloody epic turned out to be a decidedly bloodless piece of cinema.
Hell, I know that war is hell.
I get it that war is essentially immoral.
But Garland’s civil war is all bullet and no flesh.
And where’s the fun in that?
This is your faithful Matinee Manic checking in.
Without benefit of military escort.
Until next time.
FreeGNV 