CIVIL WAR IS MIXED UP
Despite a lot of publicity for the film Civil War, the efforts of an Englishman to direct a film about a civil war in the United States is a spectacle but politically amounts to a flop. Despite the director’s denials, the film’s president is a substitute for Donald Trump, as the film states that the president has abolished the FBI (as Trump has proposed) and is beginning his third term in office. At the beginning of the film, the president lies, announcing victory in efforts against secessionist California and Texas. At the end of the film, when the insurgent group with two stars in the flag appears to be the joint force of California and Texas that has won control of the capitol in Washington, and a small force assassinates the president. Meanwhile, the real focus of the film is on photojournalists who travel from somewhere toward Washington while taking pictures of various forms of carnage.
The first problem is that California and Texas would never join forces. The second problem is that the journalists take pictures, but no pictures appear on any media format, presumably because no independent media are operating due to the civil war. The third problem is that the journalists take pictures without any reasonable cover to protect them from gunfire, running alongside armed units. The most important problem is that the victorious force is undisciplined and consists primarily of vigilantes, who would lack any power to overtake the American army and air force. There appears to be no civil war at all because the vigilantes are not stopped by tanks and other major weapons that would be at the disposal of an existing president. Even the battle scenes are much milder than a real civil war would be. MH