Mark Reviews Movies: AMERICAN INSURRECTION

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 7, 2021

Jarret Kerr and director William Sullivan have devised a big, potentially inflammatory premise with their screenplay for American Insurrection. The biggest surprises of the movie, then, are the assorted ways the filmmakers try to keep things grounded.

The back story, as vague as it may be, possesses some political logic to it, and the plot is mostly a domestic melodrama, with an aim of seeing how people with similar beliefs can be divided and how those with opposing views can find some commonality. It's neither thoughtful political filmmaking nor engaging drama, but considering the alternative, the movie could have been a lot worse. If it possessed some real courage in its reaction to contemporary reactionary politics, the movie could have been much better, too.

The story is set during some unspecified future in the United States. A quartet of literal social outcasts are held up on a farm within some forest clearing. Zabi (Nadine Malouf), a Muslim, and David (Nick Westrate), a convert to the religion, are married, currently living in this remote place with friends Jarret (Kerr) and Sarah (Sarah Wharton).

Zabi in particular has to hide from society at large, because it has been overtaken by a far right-wing militia called the Volunteers. Anyone who doesn't fit the group's accepted mold—straight, white, and Christian, to be precise—is branded with a barcode. Assembled into hunting parties, the Volunteers capture and imprison or murder these "undesirable" elements.

Some, of course, will scoff at this conceit, regardless of their political leanings—either perceiving it as some kind of broad condemnation or seeing it as a simplification of the real issues with modern-day reactionary politics within the country. There's no way to change the minds of those who might already have judged and/or dismissed the movie for its premise or the politics happening in the backdrop of this tale. For their part, Kerr and Sullivan certainly seem more worried about offending those who might feel targeted by the premise than in following through on it to its most terrible ends.

This leads to a sometimes strange and disconnected approach. It tries to rationalize with a certain segment of the population, by portraying the most extreme version of certain beliefs they might hold and ultimately arguing that a pleasant conversation might be all that stands between them as some kind of awakening.

The result is at once cynical, in that both sides of this conflict eventually consider or actually do awful things (some far more terrible than others, although the movie itself seems to ignore this in order to make the comparison), and optimistic, in that it really is just a matter of finding common ground and compassion that stands in the way of bridging the political gap. If the backdrop the screenwriters established for their own story weren't so severe and deadly, we might actually be able to buy either of these attitudes.

Anyway, the politics are, surprisingly, secondary here (Flashbacks offer scant details of the Volunteers' rise, from local groups to a national movement that overtakes the government, and the process, as well as the toned-down but obvious language used to sell the idea, is eerily believable). Most of the story involves the foursome—as well as new arrival Arjay (Brandon Perea), a gay man whom Sarah rescues from being brutally murdered by a couple of Volunteers—waiting for a radio transmission with coordinates for an escape into Canada.

Our protagonists are generally safe, because they have overrun this farm from Gabe (Michael Raymond-James), a Volunteer they keep shackled in the barn. While Sarah and Jarret debate following the current plan or just making a run for it, Zabi tries to understand why Gabe went from a military veteran and happy family man to a member of a murderous political gang. Also meanwhile, David tries to hide his sexual attraction to men and the guilt that comes from that secret.

The melodrama of these arguments and David's hidden shame can, obviously, go only so far before it becomes repetitive and frustrating, since most of these problems could be settled with an uninterrupted conversation or two. The interruptions come, of course, to prevent that, in such forms as the occasional drone and a Volunteer hunting party, which Jarret has to join to keep up the charade.

It's telling that Sullivan and Kerr really allow only one conversation to dig deeper and without distraction. That belongs to Zabi, who relates what the volunteers did to her family, and Gabe, who explains his transformation from emotional ruin, to political disillusionment, and to finding some sense of purpose with the Volunteers, as much as he may disagree with some of their tactics. The intentions and goal of this scene are transparent and maybe a bit naïve, but the honesty of the words and the authenticity of the two performances make it feel like more than sappy, hollow earnestness.

Nothing else here matches that moment in terms of complexity or sincerity. Indeed, one has to question both of those elements in American Insurrection, especially when it inevitably leads to scenes of violence to settle its intimate, interpersonal, and political dramas.

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