THE THING THAT CIVIL WAR CAPTURES about sectarian conflict is that it is not typically a coherent ideological struggle, one forcing the final result of arguments unheeded. Rather, it is a function of survival—he’s shooting at me, so I’m shooting at him—and inchoate score settling.
Anyone who has been to a theater in the last year has seen a trailer for this movie with the “What kind of American?” scene, in which a gunman played by Jesse Plemons asks a group of journalists if they can describe the kind of American they are. Bad news for the stringer from Hong Kong; better news for the girls from Missourah and Colaradah. Whether you consider this sequence self-parody or chilling depends a bit on your perspective coming in.
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