Hey remember when Kirsten Dunst was a cute young actress? Yeah, seems like a lifetime ago doesn't it? But anyway, what's this flick about then? A prediction for the outcome of the 2024 election?
Right so there isn't really that much to explain when it comes to the plot of this film. The US of A is currently under the control of an apparent authoritarian President and administration which is set to govern for a third term (the US President can only have two terms, hence the authoritarian bit I guess). But never fear, the combined Western forces of California and Texas are here to save the day! Not sure what the rest of America is up to during this spat but there you go. This film follows a small group of journalists who are on their way to try and interview the President in Washington as said Western Forces are closing in on the Capitol.
This film came out at a time when politics and the public mood in the US, leading up to the Trump vs Harris 2024 election, were at boiling point. So good marketing there I guess. Director Alex Garland had stated that the film was in no way supposed to be leaning one way or the other politically and definitely wasn't supposed to try and influence voters, riiiiight. I mean hey, come on, this is just my opinion but this was clearly a political statement surrounding Trump and his previous four year term, and the potential for his next four year term.
I found this film quite odd frankly...and somewhat triggering truth be told. For starters, the idea that the State of California and Texas would join forces to battle the Federal government (which is clearly conservative) is quite simply ludicrous. What about the other Western liberal States like Oregon and Washington? We are told that the current administration are authoritarian but we are not told why. Are they really or is this the liberal Democrat view on authoritarianism? We also learn that the Western Forces are secessionists, which in my book would kinda make them the extremist party in this story, the bad guys perhaps. But the Western Forces are obviously meant to be the good guys as we follow the plot from their viewpoint as the main characters follow their side. So I feel we don't really get a level playing field overall.
So we don't really know what the current POTUS has actually done to trigger this Western insurrection and we aren't told what the Western Forces are actually wanting. Yeah they wanna depose the President but with what intentions? As I said we don't really know who to root for here. The main characters also offer no real insights into the story or themselves amazingly. Dunst plays a war-hardened journalist who has PTSD from her previous travels. She wants to interview the President and at the same time is mentoring a young conflict journalist wannabe played by Cailee (Kayleigh?) Spaeny who is wet behind the ears and trying to toughen up in the face of much violence. Pound shop Pedro Pascal Wagner Moura is a journalist working with Dunst's character to interview the President. And Stephen McKinley Henderson is the elder mentor journalist in the group who doesn't need to be in the story. He's there for a predictable emotional death scene. Oh and two foreign born Americans turn up halfway through the story for no other reason other than to have a scene involving racism and America-first nationalism, because of course.
The story unfolds much like any war film whose point of view is from a specific soldier, usually fresh in the field. The small group travel from one harrowing emotional moment to the next in their 4X4. Each one is obviously supposed to toughen up the naive young journalist for her big predictable emotional finale where she finally sees through the blood and gore. It's pretty obvious that Dunst's character will also die seeing as she literally discusses the possibility with her young apprentice at the start. Said harrowing moments aren't actually that harrowing really, I've seen worse. It's all as you would expect, rogue groups of militia doing illegal things, bit of racism, moral quandaries, life being cheap etc...Highly predictable stuff.
The real meat of the dish comes towards the finale as the team join with Western Forces to storm the White House. This plays out much like any other Gerald Butler action flick and I had to keep reminding myself that it's actually supposed to be a serious dramatic sequence. The heroic (?) Western Forces storming the White House taking out hordes of secret service and various other forces still loyal to the evil (Republican) President. They murder any White House staff left alive, literally! Which again got me questioning who was supposed to be the good guys in this story. Eventually they crash the Oval office, drag the begging President out from under his desk, get him to beg a bit more, then execute him with extreme prejudice! They then pose with his corpse over the end credits! Geez!!
Now again, call me crazy, call me a conspiracy theorist, call me controversial etc...but to me this entire sequence played out like a Democrat wet dream. The whole notion of storming the White House to drag the current (supposed) authoritarian President (obviously Trump) out from under his desk like a snivelling coward (maximum humiliation) and then throw his ass in jail is exactly what many left-leaning people actually wanted to see happen (going by social media). Hell the Democrats spent most of 2024 trying to throw Trump in jail via any means possible so some elements of this film aren't too far-fetched.
I found this film highly amusing with its predictable cliches and generic plot. The only surprise being California and Texas joining forces which just seemed like a move to try and not make the plot look like left vs right. Essentially, think of 'Apocalypse Now' but nowhere near as good or harrowing with bizarrely poor musical choices and you're kinda along the right lines. Everything was so obvious, I literally had a checklist of cliches and tropes in my head that were mostly all ticked off as the film progressed. Add to that the fact that everyone and everywhere claims this film wasn't influenced by any current day politics is just laughable. I think people just didn't want to acknowledge the obvious. This is essentially what the Democrats thought was gonna happen at the end of Trump's first term back in 2020. Anyway, the film was well directed, well made, and well shot without breaking the bank, but overall it's incredibly generic with a vague plot and characters.
4/10
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