Ethan Blanchard's Reviews
Great action movie, vagueness of politics makes it timeless
The most woke element of this movie is that journalists are portrayed as heroes. Otherwise, the movie is intentionally vague on its politics so that you can see your own side as the good guys no matter where you stand.
In the film, the federal government is headed by Ron Swanson whose politics are not discussed. We "know" he's bad because he "ordered air strikes on American citizens", has a third term, and abolished the FBI. The federal government is opposed by the Western Forces of California & Texas. Since, in real life, these states are opposites, this is an example of how the director intentionally blurs elements of our actual political issues so that we can't see thru the lens of our personal politics.
When we see conflict between the Western Forces and the feds, we can't tell whether the film considers the Western Forces to be good guys, it's just that the protagonists are following them around. There's also no racial element. When we get to the end of the film, we see black soldiers of the Western Forces kill black feds.
In the middle of the film, a bad guy, who is white (Jesse Plemons) kills a journalist who is from Hong Kong. However, this isn't based on race. Plemons kills the journalist only when Plemons learns that he is not an American citizen: it is nationalistic. We also never learn if Plemons' character was a fed, part of the Western Forces, some local militia, or just some random murderer.
There are some slow and boring scenes, but the movie on the whole is very entertaining, politically vague, and so violent.
Created: 05-07-2024