Movies like Civil War remind me of how different of a person I am now after years of earnestly practicing my Faith than what I was ten, even five years ago.  There is some Biblical context for what I will call my development.  Ephesians 4:24 exhorts us to “put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth,” all of which begins with Baptism.  It also does not end with Baptism.  Much of what it means to follow God relates to a constant renewal of one’s commitment to walk in His way.  Indeed, at the Easter Vigil we Catholics repeat our Baptismal promises to God.  Each year I can say that I am in another place spiritually than the one before it.  This does not always mean that I am any closer to God than previously, and I would be lying if I said I could count forward progress whenever we get to the Resurrection.  No matter how one would characterize my movements, the simple fact is that I look at what happens in today’s film not as I would as a younger person.  The earlier version would have been more idealistic.  Today, I am sad, and I was on the verge of tears while watching it.  Perhaps this is just age and lower testosterone levels in my system?  No matter the contributing factors, what I am about to describe will not be a happy experience.

With a title like Civil War, it is not surprising that it begins with the President of the United States (Nick Offerman) addressing what I will loosely call the nation.  I say this because this country has broken into a few different factions, hence the title.  Some of these are more organized than others, but the main ones are the so-called Western Alliance, led by California and Texas, against those states remaining loyal to the president and the Capital of Washington, D.C.  These loyalist forces are basically the northeast and northern Midwest states.  All the others are in varying phases of togetherness, but no matter their cohesion, they are all angry with the Commander-in-Chief for giving himself a third term in office and using the military to target anyone who opposed.  Some of this is explained, and some of this I am inferring because the background is not spelled out explicitly.  What is clearer is that those who back the president are not doing well in the conflict, despite his assurances that the government’s victory is imminent.  Photographing the general chaos in New York City is award-winning photo-journalist Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst).  She is on hand with her reporter partner Joel (Wagner Moura), covering the government’s forces trying to quell an angry mob.  In the midst of the escalating strife, Lee meets Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), who is a young, up-and-coming photographer who aspires to be just like Lee.  The meeting of a childhood hero for Jessie is interrupted by an explosion that tears apart civilians and soldiers alike.  Yet, there is Lee in the middle of it all, capturing it on film.  Later, Joel and Lee are at a hotel frequented by many of their colleagues, including their good friend and writer for the New York Times, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson).  Joel and Lee want to head for Washington, D.C., in order to interview the president, which seems foolhardy to the aged and more experienced Sammy.  Nonetheless, he gives them pointers on how to get there, which turns out to be code for his desire to go with his friends.  Lee also runs into Jessie in the lobby who is eager to get some more pointers from the more learned photo-journalist.  Lee is blunt, basically telling her to keep snapping pictures and to wear Kevlar.  The next morning, after being haunted by memories of the warzones in which she has worked, Lee is not pleased to find Jessie as part of their little band headed to the capital.  Lee tells her novice counterpart that she can come, but that she will be left behind once they get to Charlottesville.  From there, it is time to get on the road.  It should be noted here that the trip from New York City to Washington, D.C., takes up the majority of the film with a variety of things happening along the way.  To treat them all would be burdensome, so I will give you the thematic thrust of the goings-on.  Though Dunst’s Lee is the headliner, the story is really about Jessie’s transformation.  Jessie’s first experience with a warzone sees her so terrified that she barely remembers to use her camera.  With time, though, Lee lets her guard down with Jessie, and gives the newcomer pointers on how to handle the profession.  Mainly, this comes with coping with trauma.  The big one occurs when they are stopped by government forces busy burying a number of dead civilians they apparently murdered, and Jessie is about to be executed.  Though Joel and Lee attempt to intervene, Jessie is saved by Sammy, who rams the soldiers with the car but is mortally wounded.  In the scramble, Jessie is knocked into the pit full of cadavers, and is emotionally shaken.  Nonetheless, it hardens her resolve to capture what is going on in the country, which is carried over when they embed themselves with Western Alliance forces about the attack the capital.  It looks like the terror of battle has finally caught up with Lee, though Jessie is throwing herself recklessly into the most dangerous situations.  Everyone’s target is the president, and the Western Alliance believes they have killed the Chief Executive when they destroy a motorcade attempting to flee the White House.  It is Lee who correctly surmises that the president is not in any of the cars.  Instead, she leads them into the presidential residence, along with a small group of soldiers.  Yet, she is not able to reach her goal because she saves Jessie from being shot, dying from a bullet meant for the young woman.  Stunned for a moment, Jessie gets up and is able to photograph the president’s summary execution.

The final shot of Civil War is meant to evoke a picture being developed, with Joel and the soldiers posing in front of the bullet-riddled corpse of the president.  Earlier I discussed how the motivations behind why any of this is happening are not clear.  With the way it ends, I am not sure the circumstances matter.  Given what I have told you about the movie, can you point to a protagonist?  I suppose the closest we get to one is Lee.  She lays down her life for Jessie, and such acts will always be close to this Catholic’s heart.  Yet, she spends most of the movie behaving in a callus manner.  She gets emotional with Sammy’s death, and there is one scene when Jessie gets her to smile.  Interestingly, Lee’s progression goes in the opposite direction as that of Jessie.  The clincher is when Lee saves Jessie.  Earlier, Jessie wonders if Lee would photograph her death, Lee being convinced then that the young woman would die if she came with them.  The tables are turned in the end.  Still, to call Lee the protagonist is misleading because before we can get any sense of how these revelations have changed her as a person, she is killed.  I guess her heroism speaks some volumes, but I would have liked something more.  The next logical choice would be Jessie.  However, instead of going to the side of her fallen hero, Jessie follows Joel and the soldiers into the Oval Office.  One could make the argument that it is what Lee would have wanted, but it strikes this reviewer as cold.  To me, a protagonist needs to have some kind of moral that leads them to a higher purpose at the conclusion.  Adding to the complications is the difficulty in seeing who are the good guys and the bad guys.  My instinct wants to say that the president’s forces are the villains since the country seems to be taking violent offense at his usurpation of power.  At the same time, those opposing him are just as murderous.  When I do not have a character to which I can devote my warn and fuzzy feelings, it makes me sad.  The reason I was on the verge of crying is because they killed Sammy, the one moral compass in the entire film.  I am not a fan of feeling this way when I go to the cinema.

Those feelings were my main topic of discussion with my dad as we drove home from seeing Civil War.  In the midst of my sadness, he (inadvertently) reminded me of a Catholic way of focusing my thoughts on this film.  He observed that human life is cheap in this movie.  A truer statement could not be said of it.  A few days ago, Pope Francis gave the world the “Dignitas Infinita,” or “On Human Dignity.”  Admittedly, there are some things that our Prelate says that are hard for this Catholic to support.  With this document, he is absolutely correct.  Its pinnacle is seen when he says, “human beings have the same inviolable dignity in every age of history, and no one can consider himself or herself authorized by particular situations to deny this conviction or to act against it.”  In short, we need to stop killing each other.  Of course, there are certain situations where the Church finds it acceptable to defend oneself, especially when your cause is just.  Even in those instances, though, one can make the argument that there are other ways to fight than with weapons of war.  What we see in the movie is a broken society.  What we do not see in it is God.  Actually, God is mentioned by the president, but in that pandering way certain politicians use the Almighty in order to prove to their base that they are Christian when the majority of their lives have demonstrated otherwise.  Politics aside, the scene that draws my attention in this regard is when Joel and Lee attempt to talk to the soldiers holding Jessie captive.  Their leader (Jesse Plemmons) is judging people based on where they are born.  If they do not state they are from the United States, he executes them.  There are far too many examples of this same kind of behavior going on in the world today, in our own country and outside of it.  Every person, as Pope Francis so eloquently defines, is worthy of consideration as a whole without the fear of being executed because they do not fit into whatever invented criteria we have for their behavior.  This includes the president at the end of the movie.

So, yeah, I did not come away from Civil War feeling great.  One might look at what I described and say, well, this is a thought provoking movie that can serve as a lesson for us all and help us to avoid such a national fate.  I earnestly pray that none of what is seen here ever happens in this country.  If you want a more effective use of your time, pray for the same thing.  Truly, every person, no matter your color or creed, has dignity.  We may not agree on everything, and that is okay, but those differences are best settled without violence for we have more in common than we may realize.