I knew going in there was no world-building, but damn it really is just a few sentences said by Samuel that establishes like anything (that the President is on his 3rd term). I actually liked the feeling of being randomly dropped into the setting on what is the last 2-3 days of the war and seeing how this way of living is totally normal for them, as opposed to seeing a movie with a zombie/monster outbreak that has normal society being shown turning to shit. In this one society is already shit and everybody is accustomed to it.
I will say, though, that as much as I thought no world building would bother me, there were a few things that did. Like how the Western Front has the exact same kind of gear and training as official military. So this led to the question "were these service members who revolted against the POTUS and absconded with this equipment, or was it spoils of war from militia members who defeated U.S. soldier to acquire them?" Talking about things like helicopters, humvees, fucking tanks, mortars and RPG. And if it's the latter then how did so many people get the training to operate those vehicles? I also wasn't a fan of almost everybody wearing military uniforms which made it hard to figure out who was who at times. One example is when they're pinned down by the sniper from the house with those 2 dudes. Those 2 dudes were rather amusing in their banter with the main press guy. I liked that guy overall, however he was pretty fucking dumb in that scene when he was trying to take some moral high ground against people who had a friend sniped in the head and were clearly unable to leave the area because they'd die themselves.
The characters were pretty well-done overall, however other than Samuel they all had at least one scene where they said or did something pretty stupid that was bleh.
Ok, now some other thoughts:
The POTUS talks and acts like Trump would in that situation. When he's rehearsing his victory speech his first iteration is literally Trump speak when he says "perhaps the greatest victory mankind has ever known", or something. Was verbatim the way Trump talks and with each subsequent rehearsal of the line he moved further away from that. Also the fact that any journalists near the WH get shot on sight is something Trump has already pretty much advocated for, or at least would seeing as how he's promising retribution against those who have criticized him. Also when Samuel mentions how the POTUS air strike civilians it was reminiscent of Trump saying to drone strike the family members of terrorists. Also him disbanding the FBI, which is Trump I believe has said should happen, though I don't know if this movie was still being made when he did. And finally the fact that Charlottesville was "the frontline" made me obviously think about the Unite The Right rally and Trump's connection to it.
One thing that felt weird is that while the POTUS seems like Trump, a lot of the domestic terrorists seemed like they would be more MAGA than not:
The first terrorist felt like a very emblematic youthful MAGA woman. She looks like a southern blonde, blue-eyed white girl and literally carries an American flag into a crowd she suicide bombs. I also noticed the crowd she blows up looked like a ton of impoverished minorities begging for water primarily made up the crowd.
And here's where it gets annoying that nobody really identifies their faction except U.S. soldiers getting shot at by obvious civilians in that one scene and at the end with the Western Front.
At the gas station when they see those 3 dudes outside they give 300 CN to for gas, Jesse goes with that one guy to see the people hanging in the car wash. Lee asks to take a picture of him with them, which they talk about him doing before shooting them. The guy says they're looters and one of the people said his family was hungry and he was trying to feed them. They were beaten up badly, strung up for 2 days, and then ultimately executed. That type of sick and twisted behavior is definitely not uncommon from what I've seen right-wingers express in regards to looters. Those guys were dressed in civilian clothing, but literally everybody has military-grade hardware uniform or no.
Then as I mentioned previously during that one firefight where Jesse snaps that shot of the dude dying with his friend asking for help, they encounter the wounded soldier who clearly is no threat and execute him on the spot. They then capture 3 soldiers, put a bag over their head, take them out to a field, and execute them with a mounted turret. The smile and expression on that dude's face as he executes them is the sickest shit ever and instantly made me think that the right-wingers who insist they "need their firearms incase they need to resist a tyrannical government" who seemingly express glee at the thought of using them for said purpose.
Later when Jesse and the guy driving are taken by those people with the mass grave, they are in full military uniform and are questioning them like right-wing domestic terrorists would. Dude literally asks where they're from, making sure to say "American" after Missouri & Colorado and "Central America" for Florida, and he made a point of telling the Chinese guy to "speak English clearly" before saying "China?" and immediately executing him. They are also prepared to seemingly kill anybody who saw what they were doing or happened to run across them.
And then finally at the end we see the Western Front and they are the most well-presented and civilized military force in the entire movie. They are almost presented too well in their civility and mannerisms, so it distinguishes them from almost all combat fighters shown thus far except the 2 dudes trying to snipe the sniper. They also professionally protected (as the military is trained) the press people who were following them around which is one of the things that made me wonder why they behaved like that as we don't know their faction's origin. Seeing the respect they gave the press and their presence would not be expected of right-wing ideological force.
Since they are increasingly heading towards DC, based off the factions as described per geographical location I concluded that everybody shown who wasn't the U.S. military was part of the Western Front, which would be odd given the difference in behavior. The people fighting in civilian clothes could have been local militias who just happened to have guns, or they could have been guards armed by the WF to keep controlled territories out of U.S. military hands. But then there's also the guys in military uniforms salting the mass grave of civilians they obviously murdered. This is one of the things that actually makes the lack of worldbuilding suck as I have a ton of questions that may never get answered.
But a side note in regards to factions, when Jesse is talking about Miller's backstory, I'm pretty sure she said "you covered the AntiFa Massacre, and then became the youngest MAGA photojournalist", two things. 1) Do you think the "AntiFa Massacre" is meant to depict them as the as the aggressors or the ones who were massacred? 2) I doubt myself on that second part, she did say MAGA, right? This is the only time in the movie I remember political ideology actually being discussed.
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