When Trump warned that if he didn't win this November's presidential election, there would be bloodshed, it was difficult not to believe him despite how easy it is most of the time to do just that. That human stain on our collective political and cultural consciousness, like a stopped clock, has to be right some of the time. But I couldn't help but think a 'civil war' may turn out to be a more haphazard affair of neighbours just disagreeing, some violently inevitably, while extremist factions will parade their hate to peaceful places where it would flare up and fizzle out. That's by far the most hopeful prospect of the worst case scenario and then I remembered a small pertinent fact, one that you are probably screaming at the screen as you read this hopelessly out of touch hypothesis. The current population (babies to pensioners) of the USA is 333.3 million people. If the domestic tally of firearms were divided up equally, this means that each of those 333.3 million souls would have 1.13 guns each. Just to put that in context, in the UK, it's 0.009 guns each, a nine thousandth of a gun. Garland's narrative (he wrote and directed the film) features two States (California and Texas, the 'Western Forces') that have seceded, broken off from the union, joined forces and waged war on an authoritarian President who has the US's military might behind him. I cannot see this as a viable real world situation because North America's divisions are broadly countrywide as far as my reading of the news is concerned. But California and Texas? Did Garland mean to go out of his way to create an alliance so unlikely that it may have damaged the film's premise? That doesn't make the film's execution and narrative any less absorbing. So let's just say that two States went to war with an authoritarian President…

What would you think if I said, in Hollywoodese executive-speak, that Civil War is a cross between All About Eve, Under Fire and the pilot episode of The Walking Dead? The first is a classic Bette Davis 1950s melodrama about a famous actress who is, at first, gently 'stalked' by a fan and is ultimately cynically overtaken and discarded by her ex-devotee… It's a tragic passing of the baton by a knowing naïf (yes, tautology, forgive me) while the older and no longer adored actress goes through an existential crisis. Under Fire is a film that presents death in wartime as omnipresent, frequent and horrifically random. The ever-present danger of forces beyond one's control and comprehension is a feature of the early episodes of The Walking Dead. So Civil War, briefly summarised, is as follows.

It's the future but as Max Headroom used to remind us, 20 minutes into the future. The President of the US is practising an address to his part of the nation. There is a sense that things are not going well with him. There is a civil war raging. Society has broken down and people with guns hold all the power. In her early twenties and looking very much younger, Jessie is taking photographs at a small demonstration that is, by turns, becoming out of control. Soldiers are besieged by people desperate for water. Someone runs by with a US flag (highly divisive in this context. The Western Forces' flag is also a stars and stripes design but has only two stars). Seasoned Magnum photographer Lee Miller (named after the famed war photographer who covered the end of World War II) drags Jessie behind a car as the flag wielding suicide bomber detonates his vest. Carnage ensues. Lee is offhand with Jessie despite the younger girl being in awe of Lee whose work is famous. She gives her a Hi-Viz vest and bids her adieu. At the hotel that evening Lee and her partner Joel, a Reuters journalist addicted to risk, let slip that they intend to travel over 800 miles to get an interview with the President, a suicide mission apparently and despite misgivings, they agree to take a portly New York Times journalist with them and drop him off at the 'front' or in this case Charlottesville. Jess is also in the car, much against Lee's wishes. Joel reminds her that she got her own big break as a young twenty-something and reluctantly Lee lets her tag along. During the journey there are many unpleasant encounters and a few surprises leading to the climax, the battle for the White House. Any more details would spoil some extraordinarily powerful scenes.

I have to admit that I was put off this film by three reviews that mentioned how little we knew of the characters and their motivations and therefore how difficult it was to care for any of them. Site editor Slarek then told me that a friend of his had said how extraordinary the sound design was and so that was that. I had to see (and hear) it. Much to my delighted surprise, I really loved the film and the characters and found the whole argument of not connecting with it and them oddly implausible. But hey, strokes, folks. Different. Viva la. Etcetera.

In a bold, unexpected and sometimes jarring way, Garland makes very creative use of what the industry calls 'needle drops', commercial tracks of music that are somehow connected to what went on before and serve as counterpoints or explicit comments via their lyrics on what just occurred. It's almost like an emotional escape valve where we have our cinematic palette cleansed after a devastating scene of human loss of life of which there are many. There are two such tracks that made me think how much fun film editor Jake Roberts was having cutting to these musical interludes. Played silently, the scene of the Western Forces lining up Loyalist prisoners to be summarily shot is accompanied by what might have been a Reggae needle drop (I am untrained in that musical genre with the exception of the obvious Marley works). But I swear the unheard gunshots that executed the Loyalists were timed to the music in such a way that the drums were in perfect sync with the fatal volley. And then there were the helicopters. I just had a daydream that Alex Garland bet his editor that no one would notice something I got such a delightful frisson from. The needle drop accompanying Western Forces helicopters as they amass to move troops and equipment to Washington DC is perfectly timed to the flashing lights on the side of the choppers. I sat there like a child with candy floss imagining how editor Roberts must have tweaked the shots to get that beautiful synchronicity. Now, reality check. The helicopters were almost certainly computer generated. The budget was not big enough to use the real thing but again, happy to be disabused of this assumption. But who can tell anymore and do I care? I just care about the detail and this aspect had me squirming with joy at what The Guardian called recently 'the precision of a film editor…'

There are myriad details that punctuate the film and give it a richness and a depth uncommon to films of this ilk. Sheltering from a sniper at an abandoned Christmas Fair, Lee and Jessie hug the ground and two slow focus pulls show us the botanical life that is growing next to them oblivious to the human carnage happening on their disinterested watch. Classy. When we get to the scene featuring the red glasses-wearing militia man I had to rack my mind as to where I had seen him before. It is, of course, an uncredited Jesse Plemons, the quiet, put-upon husband in The Power of the Dog. The fact that his character's wife was played by Kirsten Dunst in that film and that she plays war photographer Lee and is the star of Civil War had me put two and two together. Now those two are together as husband and wife for real. His turn is bone cold and memorable as hell.

The cast is faultless. Kirsten Dunst is playing a woman haunted by all the hell she has willingly dived into for those searing photo-ops. She is a woman who is very slowly defrosting in front of her acolyte Jessie but also at the end of her tether itself wrapped around and entangled with horrors we can barely imagine. At a key moment her experience closes her down and it's only the wisdom and care from Joel in such a vicious firefight that literally pulls her through. Joel is played by Wagner Moura who really lets us understand what adrenal rewards await in the maelstrom of insanity that is war journalism. The fact he has to face up to just how barbarous it can be is illustrated with a single shot of the poor man screaming with grief-fuelled rage while we hear nothing but a needle drop.

Jessie, played by Cailee Spaeny, is the rogue element in the journalists' long trek. She loses her nerve being subjected to live torture victims but is happy to swap vehicles through car windows at 50mph as a dare. Her burgeoning objectivity as a war photographer is teased out as she develops a creeping lack of concern for any emotional connection she may have had with her fellow journalists. Once in the thick of it, she surrenders all for the silver halide rush of click-to-image. There is a dichotomy in calling the exposed film 'negative' when so much can be gleaned and evoked from the positive of that negative. Pictures have such power. Yes, Jessie shoots honest to goodness film… real celluloid. In the near future, I didn't think this was believable but the fact she develops her own negatives on the road makes her doubly intriguing. I used to develop my own black and white film with the equipment on show in Civil War.

The sound design is, as expected, excellent. You are very much drawn to appreciate the sound if only for the loud and shocking bursts of gunfire that punctuate throughout the film. In the final battle the cinema was alive with totally immersive sound effects that never felt gratuitous, just real. It was a joy just to be back in the cinema again. It's been a little alarming recently that there was so little on that I felt drawn to make the effort for. Frozen Ghostbusters? That ship sailed a long, long time ago.

It's curious to me that some critics have panned the film for not taking a side. In this particular war, sides seem to be irrelevant. This is where the film remains unanchored to 'the real world'. The two States vs. The President is a civil war that we won't see even if things get really nasty later this year. There's a moment in the film that underlines this. The afore mentioned sniper at the Christmas Fair taking pot shots at passers-by is targeted by another pair of soldiers. Asked whose side the sniper was on, they have no answer. They just need to neutralise the threat. Even if Garland was pro or anti-Trump, it would have made no difference to his film. He doesn't play the partisan card because the 'sides' are not set up that way. There is no need to. He presents a situation and we judge those moments as they are. It's a smart move because bullets are neither right nor left wing.

Civil War is an outstanding and thought-provoking war film that illustrates how easily civilisation can be upended. It has a number of scenes which have you perched on the edge of your seat, excelling in that exquisite tension of a man with a gun who might or might not kill you. Well worth a cinema visit.

* https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/mar/30/alex-garland-civil-war-interview