Civil War (2024) review

In this not-so-distant scenario, "America" is divided into four distinct sections in conflict with each other - you know, to make it "great again" - and so photojournalist Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), her partner Joel (Wagner Moura), veteran New York Times reporter Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and amateur photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) drive from NYC (through Pennsylvania) to Washington D.C. in order to get an interview with the President (Nick Offerman), but face constant threats on the way.  To his credit, Garland's movies typically have better-than-average setups and this one is no different - there has been a lot of current talk by political loons on the Extreme Right about secession - but the presentation here is abysmally underwritten: it never addresses what led the country to be broken apart in the first place (or how Texas and California formed an unlikely alliance), provides limited information on its leads and just resorts to the old fashioned "road movie" approach in which the characters find themselves in a variety of dangerous situations (concluding with the capital under siege).  The only scene that "rings true" involves an uncredited Jesse Plemons (Dunst's real-life husband) as a White Supremacist filling up a mass grave with "foreigners": it's the sole moment when the film has the nerve to actually pin-point a very real problem involving xenophobia and racism.  Try your best not to chuckle at the clunky sequence where Lee meets her well-telegraphed demise....