The discourse sure to result from the release of Alex Garland’s sobering action drama Civil War (A) is akin to the elucidating actions of his central quartet of war correspondents and photographers: simply, it’s all about the processing. Garland’s brilliant film documents several days in America’s fictional second civil war through the lens of journalists struggling to survive as the U.S. government has become a dystopian dictatorship and partisan extremist militias regularly commit war crimes. Garland is opaque about the motivations and beliefs of the two sides fighting, with few political signifiers distracting the mostly neutral press from simply chronicling the events as they see them. In addition to being an exacting and efficient war movie, it’s also an illuminating multi-generational road trip with Kirsten Dunst’s measured war photographer, Cailee Spaeny as her accidental apprentice, Wagner Moura as the gonzo chaser-dude and Stephen McKinley Henderson as the sage pragmatist thrust in the middle of a war zone together. All four actors are sensational, with Dunst earning VIP status for her grizzled and guarded portrayal of a woman who can only see clearly when brandishing her camera. The film is a stunning spectacle of shock and awe with nary a false note as the four disparate characters encounter traumatic, heartbreaking, grisly and surprising episodes along their fractured odyssey. Still-frame snapshots often punctuate profound moments within action sequences to amplify  the horror and humanity. Garland also physically and metaphorically thrusts his actors into extreme settings to maximize turns and themes, and the film’s final showdown ups the intensity with an epic infiltration into familiar territory to make nearly any viewer question personal allegiance. This is a motion picture designed to stir up conversation; hopefully those who embark on the resultant discussions will be as clear-minded as this skilled filmmaker in addressing the matters at hand.