I’ll admit I was attracted to this film because Nick Offerman plays the President. As someone else said to me, if Nick Offerman is in it, it’s gotta be worth a watch! I write as an admirer, with tongue only partly in cheek, of Nick Offerman’s deadpan public servant Ron Swanson, in the old TV sitcom “Parks and Rec.”

Nick Offerman’s POTUS appears on screen only in the very first and very last scenes of this film. SPOILER ALERT!! The film is set at the climax of a second American Civil War, a 14-month long insurgency by the so-called “Western Forces of California and Texas”. The film opens in New York City with a number of journalists seeking the ultimate interview, the ultimate photo. They decide to drive to Washington DC in search of this prize. This quest by a journalist for that last great photo, leading to a catastrophic road journey, reminded me of an old James Woods film, “Salvador”. In “Salvador” James Woods’ photographer travels to El Salvador and witnesses the murder of Archbishop Oscar Remero in 1980. A better film, if I may say so, then this one.

The first half of “Civil War” takes the form of a typical road movie – disparate and initially hostile characters bond together in fellowship during a long and arduous car journey. We see the war itself mainly in the dystopian landscape crossed by the journalists. A military chopper, crashed and burnt in the car park of a suburban mall, a “JC Penney” store prominent in the background. Freeways full of abandoned cars. Silent and eerie landscapes. The story-telling principle “Show not Tell” is taken to breaking point here with not even a glimmer of an explanation of what has happened. We see the flicker of munitions from the distant frontline. Madmen with guns – some in uniform, some not – commit atrocities. Although to be fair, that last sentence could quite easily describe the United States of America at any time.

Something I found jarring was the willingness of the photographers to document and witness, but not to intervene. It’s one thing to photograph a predator and its prey for a wildlife show, and not intervene, watching dispassionately as some poor furry creature is consumed. It is quite another to photograph the killing and death (or worse, in a nightmare sequence near the beginning clearly drawing on the photographers’ memory) of fellow human beings, and not intervene. What right do we have – though it may cost us our life – to not intervene? Of all the excuses there are in the world to walk by on the other side, I find the photo-journalists’ excuse – document but don’t intervene – one of the weakest.

The turning point of the film is a scene where one of the journalists saves the lives of the rest of them by mowing down armed men with a big SUV. My suspension of disbelief left the theatre at that point. For this scene to be even remotely convincing, the hero of the piece (who dies as a result of wounds sustained in the rescue) would have had to start and then drive the SUV a few hundred metres at high speed, without two armed soldiers hearing it – and this on a quiet summer’s day in an eerie, silent, war-torn landscape. Lazy writing is what it is. No matter: the scene is there only to facilitate a paradigm shift to the second phase of the film, where we do see actual war.

The journalists accompany the “Western Forces” into Washington DC; we find that the United States Army has without any explanation at all, mysteriously, suddenly and very conveniently given up. Unlikely as it may seem. The entire film (even if in principle a second American Civil War is possible) can be described with the words “unlikely as it may seem”. We see the taking of the White House, and the shooting dead of the President by common private soldiers of the “Western Forces”. These soldiers seem unconvincingly open, friendly and willing to engage with journalists, rather than just ignore them or shoot them on sight – as would be more likely in reality after 14 months of brutal civil war.

There are so many unanswered questions in this film. Why is Nick Offerman’s sitting President seen as the villain by the journalists? That makes no sense, even though he is transparently played as some form of Trump-like character. It’s almost as if the journalists – who would be liberal and almost certainly tribal Democrats, are sympathetic to the invasion of the USA by Texas, a secessionist state that would surely be Republican. The invasion makes no sense either. The entire war makes no sense. States (Texas and California) have seceded. If that actually happened, the reality is that (as with the original Civil War) the USA would have little choice but to invade those states to restore the status quo, not vice-versa.

Fortunately the film is not really about the geopolitical or military details of a second American Civil War, but about its effects on people, which of course, is much more important. If I am honest with myself, story has always inhabited a “post-truth world” and ignored inconvenient things like facts. It just annoys the inner geek within me. Overall, I found the first half watchable but jarring in places, I found the second half typical Hollywood flash-bang tosh – the battle, the chase, the adrenaline, taking priority over all. And I thought the music was great, particularly in the ending credits.