It's too bad that the subject of a modern American civil war will have to go untold for a long while as this film totally drops the ball. Instead of focusing on the causes of the war, the film tries to keep a "neutral" stance by revolving around some journalists who never even hint at what their ideals are. Instead, we are left to guess at why they are in the middle of things and what they expect to accomplish. It also never gives us a real reason to root for one side over the other. Since both the pro-government and "WF" forces wear the same uniform (only with different tiny flags on their arms), it makes it hard to even determine who is on what side, for us as well as the characters.
I know this was all done intentionally to keep from alienating one half of America or the other, but it also serves to neuter the film from really having any "point" to it. If it's about warning off America from going down this road by depicting the devastation, the film seldom even depicts human suffering aside from a couple unearned scenes where someone screams over the loss of someone they didn't even seem to know that well. If the film was about just rooting for the characters as they "uncover the truth", it fails there as well because there isn't anything at all resembling a twist or big revalation, and the characters never get rounded out beyond 1-dimensional. The young woman wants to prove herself, the older woman is a burnt-out cynic, the middle-aged guy is a snarky party dude, and the older guy is the wise but fragile member of the group. That's all we ever get to know about any of them.
Narratively this film patterns itself after APOCALYPSE NOW in being a journey down the road into a mad world, but the universe building doesn't follow any consistency. Some towns are post-apocalyptic and others are business-as-usual with nothing in between. It briefly touches on how shortages, inflation, and power cuts will affect society, but nothing seems to carry from scene to scene. They only seem to care about gas for the first 15 minutes of their trip for instance. There's also a particularly aggravating jump after they kill a couple soldiers and get chased after, but the pursuer is never mentioned again. It was a major missed opportunity to show that their actions had consequences, say if that angry soldier showed up at the camp later looking for them and there could have been some actual tension as they all hide from him or try to make their case to the others.
Even amidst all the baffling narrative decisions (I didn't even mention the car-surfing stupidity), the film does contain a smattering of fairly entertaining (albeit disconnected) vignettes. The ending action scene (a reverse-OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN) easily stands as the highlight of the film, but without anything really feeling at stake or well-rounded characters to root for, the emotional punch just isn't there.
I know this was all done intentionally to keep from alienating one half of America or the other, but it also serves to neuter the film from really having any "point" to it. If it's about warning off America from going down this road by depicting the devastation, the film seldom even depicts human suffering aside from a couple unearned scenes where someone screams over the loss of someone they didn't even seem to know that well. If the film was about just rooting for the characters as they "uncover the truth", it fails there as well because there isn't anything at all resembling a twist or big revalation, and the characters never get rounded out beyond 1-dimensional. The young woman wants to prove herself, the older woman is a burnt-out cynic, the middle-aged guy is a snarky party dude, and the older guy is the wise but fragile member of the group. That's all we ever get to know about any of them.
Narratively this film patterns itself after APOCALYPSE NOW in being a journey down the road into a mad world, but the universe building doesn't follow any consistency. Some towns are post-apocalyptic and others are business-as-usual with nothing in between. It briefly touches on how shortages, inflation, and power cuts will affect society, but nothing seems to carry from scene to scene. They only seem to care about gas for the first 15 minutes of their trip for instance. There's also a particularly aggravating jump after they kill a couple soldiers and get chased after, but the pursuer is never mentioned again. It was a major missed opportunity to show that their actions had consequences, say if that angry soldier showed up at the camp later looking for them and there could have been some actual tension as they all hide from him or try to make their case to the others.
Even amidst all the baffling narrative decisions (I didn't even mention the car-surfing stupidity), the film does contain a smattering of fairly entertaining (albeit disconnected) vignettes. The ending action scene (a reverse-OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN) easily stands as the highlight of the film, but without anything really feeling at stake or well-rounded characters to root for, the emotional punch just isn't there.