Bushwick: The Other Modern Day America Civil War Movie

This movie pulled a sneaky one on me, and it will pull a sneaky one on you too if you can ignore those rotten tomato scores and IMDB ratings.

Seriously, hear me out.

At some point, I saw a trailer for 2017’s Bushwick, starring Dave Bautista and some other chick, about a modern-day America doing civil war stuff. I thought to myself that I’d be in for a fun, cheesy action adventure. Alas, my spidey senses betrayed me.

To describe this movie simply, it’s about our two main characters, Lucy and Stupe (and Lucy’s sister), trying to safely escape the apparent civil war that's taking place in the urban, claustrophobic streets of Bushwick, New York.

On it’s own, it’s pretty cool. But this film has a special trick up it’s sleeve that I’ll tell you about in a minute to make it stand out from the other types of movies in this genre.

[INSERT A SUPER NOT-PRETENTIOUS AND HUMBLE WINK RIGHT HERE]

The film starts out super low-key with a sappy bit of meaningless banter between our main character, Lucy, and her fiancé. Upon stepping off the subway train in Bushwick, New York, they notice that nobody is at the station and subsequently venture out towards the exit. When they hear screaming and other various noises, something is clearly wrong. Lucy’s fiancé ventures up to the street level alone to see what is happening before promptly getting blown up by an explosion and dying right in front of Lucy.

The beginning sets the tone extremely well. Everything starts off as normal and chill before descending into utter chaos, confusion, and disaster at the snap of a finger. The rest of the film reverberates at this pace in interesting and realistic ways.

As I watched Lucy’s fiancé suddenly and unexpectedly die, I realized there had been no scene cut since the beginning. And as I continued watching, it became almost a game to guess when they were going to try to cut, but it just kept going. This effect of the events taking place appearing as one long take made me, as a viewer, feel as if everything was happening in real-time, in the moment. The number of visible cuts that happen in this film can be counted on one hand. It’s insane.

Another wonderful thing I love is that this film doesn’t shy away from what's happening. In doing so, the goal isn’t to shock or awe. In my opinion, the idea is to show what happens after seeing something horrible in what was once a familiar world. To see a real-time response rather than cutting away from the small moments that ultimately display what it really might be like to go through such a scenario. There's visible wear on the characters that builds and affects them in different ways throughout the film.

The 2024 hit, Civil War, directed by Alex Garland, was a great movie. It portrayed America’s divide as realistically as it could. The choice to tell that story through the lens of war photographers was quite sobering. For the story, it helps us quickly understand that the rules of the game have changed. This America no longer hides the bloody apron wrought from cleaning up the world's messes; it has brought the good work they did home. And now, everyone can partake in the cleanup.

Bushwick, to a lesser degree, could act as a recent spiritual prequel of sorts. The style, the direction, the technical quality, and the pace are very different. But where these two films solidly intersect is in how they deal with people in this terrible circumstance. For example, in Bushwick, our main character Lucy begins her story as a scared and trembling college girl who couldn’t defend herself or anyone else. But as the events of the film slowly grate on her, she eventually turns into a confident and capable leader who effectively protects the people she cares about.

Our second main character is a man named Stupe. He's a troubled man with a complicated past. His days are filled to the brim with pain and suffering. As a reluctant friendship develops between him and Lucy, he starts to see the things that happened to him differently. And for the first time in a long time, he finds hope.

That said, it’s not a perfect film.

The “one continuous shot” gimmick does get a little weird at times and leads to a few slow moments, but if you make it through to the third act, this movie goes from 0 to 60 really frickin fast. Action-wise, emotionally, and otherwise. The first two acts are pretty good; don’t get me wrong. It’s just... the finale is epic. It is eerily similar, in terms of pace, to 2024’s Civil War. Once you get on that ride, it ain’t over until the very end.

If this riveting description hasn’t gotten you invested in watching it already, I’m about to hit you with some more reasons.

Premise.

It’s a civil war taking place in New York. How many New York war movies have you watched? Yeah. That’s what I thought. Not many, if any.

Style.

I know I said the “one continuous shot” gimmick didn’t always work in this movie, but the thing is, I think it worked more than it didn’t. Also, it adds enormous weight to each scene. We don’t get to just cut away when something bad happens. The action feels bigger, more intense, and ultimately more dangerous. The emotions feel closer to home, more genuine, and truly raw.

Action.

The events of this film feel genuinely intense. As we follow the main characters through the streets of Bushwick we are greeted with gradually intensifying action sequences that crescendos into an all out war. Most of the fight scenes, escape sequences, and firefights are actually nicely choreographed. When it comes down to it, this film may have its slow parts, but the adrenaline rushed finale alone justifies this film as one worth watching.

Acting.

The way the characters are presented feels very genuine. It’s helped by the one-shot nature of it, but the acting does help a lot. Brittany Snow, the actress who plays the main girl Lucy, is a little hit or miss at points. I’m not even gonna try and make it out like she did a fantastic job. She did a pretty good job. The main standout for me was Dave Bautista. This was one of those movies that contributed to me taking him seriously as a dramatic actor. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there’s a scene towards the end where he tells his story…and it’s heartbreaking. He seriously killed it, literally and metaphorically. For a character named Stupe, I was shocked at how invested I was in his journey. I’d be willing to bet that if you chose to watch this, you’d be just as invested.

All in all.

This movie came out of nowhere for me. I expected nothing going into it, and ended up watching a surprisingly deep, pleasantly subversive, and well made film that shocked the heck out of me.

Then again, that’s just how I felt about it.

Give it a watch and shoot me a comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.