War is good for absolutely nothing in general. But if one were to happen, at least we have war correspondents and journalists to brave the front lines and chronicle these events, hopefully as a warning to other nations and world governments not to do this. Alex Garland of 28 Days Later and Annihilation fame has directed a film with A24 called Civil War. It comes with a helluva budget and has a backdrop of a torn-up nation fighting each other.

Its twist? It puts us in the perspective of the brave people who capture and report the catastrophe(s) live for the public eye. Yes, they do get caught in the eventual crossfire, but it’s a tough job that many do for various personal reasons. Our story is focused on Lee (Kirsten Dunst), Joel (Wagner Moura), and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) who have a scoop to chase in Washington DC involving the president. Of course, the America this show is set in is fighting each other and is in early stages of a post-apocalypse.

The  group ends up getting a tagalong in the form of amateur photographer Jessie (Cailey Spaeny) who is a fan of Lee’s work and wants to be a war journalist like her, much to Lee’s chagrin at first. Thus begins a road trip fraught with a new and terrifying vision of America, as well as the danger they get into which can hit close to home if you open up your mind a bit.

Vantage Point

Alex Garland and his crew spared no expense in portraying this version of America with a combination of beauty and destruction, having the camera stay onto shots of vistas and military vehicles land and air coming in. The chaos that ensues is also easy to follow, with solid camera work and directing that flows naturally and without jarring effect.

Story-wise, the best moments involve camaraderie and bonding between Lee and Jessie, two women who share bits of their past while also opening up to one another. When Jessie gets shaken up by war-related events she sees up close, Lee comes in for the save, but also gets brutally honest much to her colleague’s dismay.

Lee being the veteran and Jessie being the student, with the dynamic slowly evolving, is perhaps the show’s crux that keeps us invested if the visuals of an effed-up America won’t do that for you. Joel and Sammy also keep up with the pacing and preserve the group dynamic, sticking together as journalists just doing their jobs.

This being an Alex Garland film, violence and horror do have to come into the fray, and it’s portrayed in a really gritty and raw manner. Explosions, corpses, corpse piles, people getting strung up and tortured; it’s all there. Perhaps the most harrowing segment of the film involves Jesse Plemons. Again, just having this play out along with its results is intense and dreadful to sit through; techniques that Garland is familiar with, and it’s done well.

My only issue with Civil War as a whole is that it’s missing a bridge that leads to a character’s radical transition in the last 20 minutes of the film. Without spoilers, this character’s pivotal change could have used an extra few scenes to flesh out. Other than that, Alex Garland’s latest is a beautiful yet harrowed look at the life of a war journalist, covering a fictional war that could ring close to home, and choosing wisely on which parts to put more focus on.

There’s no preachy message here and there are no “pick a side” moments: just the human story of people doing their dangerous jobs and us relating to the struggles on-screen. Just in a more extreme situation that could happen to a particular few nations currently under fire if given a few years of not sorting their s*** out.

Final Score: 80/100

*Note: This movie is showing in Singapore at the moment, not in Malaysia