If there’s one thing I love it’s a really smart
political movie and it’s even better if it’s satirical (copies of Wag the Dog for
all!). Another thing I love is a really,
really dang good TV movie, largely because of their relative rarity in the
great movie canon. At the intersection
of these genres is The Second Civil War,
a movie that begins with India nuking Pakistan, and only gets funnier. We’ve got a fantastic cast on our hands,
including Beau Bridges, Phil Hartman, James Coburn, Elizabeth Peña, Dan Hedaya,
James Earl Jones, Ron Perlman, and Denis Leary, as well as a sizeable pile of
welcome character players. We also have
a fantastic director, Joe Dante (Gremlins,
The Howling, The ‘Burbs, and Matinee
(which will be spoken of in a future review, BTW)).
The whole mess takes place “sometime in the near
future,” wherein the Department of Ethnic Affairs has been formed to deal with
a staggering number of international crises (including a billion-person
increase in population, “standing room only from Maine to California”). Their answer is allowing boat- and
plane-loads of refugees enter certain U.S. states, and reaction has been mixed
(especially considering lunacy such as Rhode Island becoming mostly Chinese
overnight). For reasons that are
certainly harebrained, a plane full of Pakistani orphan children is due to be
flown to Idaho, and Governor Jim Farley (Bridges) has responded by closing
Idaho’s borders. There are many wrinkles
in this action, his own being his growing affair with Christina Fernandez (Peña),
a News Net reporter and official Mexican immigrant. Closing his borders to immigrants probably
wouldn’t allow him to marry her (which he insists upon), and this situation
gets a lot of scenes where Christina’s boss, Mel (Hedaya), asks her to stay
close to Farley for the story, and she just happens to be on the couch in his
office. The News Net room is in scramble
mode, including using infrared satellite photos of the Pentagon to determine if
America will retaliate against Idaho (which it will), and reporter Jim Kalla (Jones)
provides deep narration.
The President (Hartman) is flabbergasted, and seems
to turn solely to Jack Buchan (Coburn), a public image specialist who insists
that the President move his deadline for Idaho to open its borders a bit sooner
than 72 hours to not interrupt All My
Children. The revised time is 67½ hours, naturally. Buchan
also has a team of quote-writers, all of them non-Americans, whip up an
Eisenhower quote to go along with the President’s TV declaration. Things aren’t much more sane at News Net, as
a serious suggestion is to superimpose the faces of the Pakistani orphans on
the heads of the singers in the “We Are The World” music video.” The orphans themselves are driven to the
Idaho border, which was of course a good idea considering the amassing Idaho
National Guard. Meanwhile, the mayor of
Los Angeles Javier Clark makes an anti-Idaho address entirely in Spanish, and
is promptly shot at by American nationalists.
Not only is Christina asked to translate Javier’s speech (making it much
more impassioned due to her personal interest in the issue), but it appears she
has morning sickness, too. The Alamo is bombed
by Mexico, and the generals on the two sides of Idaho’s border are two old
farts whose main concern is showing each other up as a resolution to petty
quarrels. And all of this is woven
together with tons of funny dialogue and the wise, sober presence of James Earl
Jones.
In ensemble pieces all the performances need to be
spot on, and each of The Second Civil War’s
are spectacularly placed. Phil Hartman
as the unnamed President is hysterical, continually stupid but determined to
emulate the great former presidents about which he is deeply misinformed. Beau Bridges is colloquial and likeable as
always, giving his Governor role a fast-talking, Bush, Jr. feel (before Bush,
no less). His character is given the
deepest focus, and despite his radical decision he maintains a childlike
fascination with America and truly loves Christina and their future child. Other essential performances are Peña’s
continual annoyance at life, Hedaya’s wide-eyed, manic network boss, and a
spectacularly blue-collar reporter played by Ron Perlman. The high-quality acting allows for some
hilarious throwaway characters, such as the White House’s Nation of Islam
consul and a Sikh with a comically thick Alabama accent.
I can’t speak too much on the direction, suffice to
say that the pacing is excellent at keeping up with the many plotlines. The writer, Martyn Burke, is a name I’m not
familiar with but now I’ll have to investigate (including his other
made-for-HBO movie The Pentagon Wars, starring
Kelsey Grammar and Cary Elwes). Burke
has fashioned a wickedly incisive, bullet-paced satire that is worthy of
joining the ranks of the best films in the genre; too bad nobody ever talks
about it, or Pentagon. Why not?
Who could say no to that cast?
Maybe it’s not just the venue in which it was shown; it might be too
satirical, playing fast and loose with our inherent racism and turning
surprisingly serious at points. That
ending is a bit odd (not that I’d dare reveal it), not a climax in hilarity but
one that leaves the audience in a more thoughtful mood they woke up with that morning. The good thing is that the DVD is cheap, so
there’s another addition to your wish list if you care to indulge. Just be forewarned that it’s an incendiary ride,
so don’t get too politically correct; after all, as James Earl Jones closes the
film, “all art is messy as hell.”
~PNK
No comments:
Post a Comment