Moss, Jesse (Filmmaker)

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    ‘War Game’ Review: It Can’t Happen Here (Right?)

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    This nail-biter of a documentary imagines it is Jan. 6, 2025, and armed supporters of the losing candidate are hatching a coup and maybe a civil war. What will the nation’s leaders do?“War Game,” a nail-biter of a documentary, asks a question a lot of us don’t want to even consider: What if there’s another Jan. 6, only bigger, better organized and more ideologically cohesive? To try and answer that question, on Jan. 6, 2023, two filmmakers turned their cameras on a nonpartisan group of politicians and intelligence and military advisers who were role-playing in a fake crisis like the assault on the Capitol. Like actors in a grim sequel — Steve Bullock, the ex-governor of Montana, plays the incumbent president — they were taking part in an unnervingly familiar scenario, racing to prevent a coup and maybe civil war.This war game was created by Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group for veterans that was founded in 2009. As in other war games, exercises that simulate and prepare for wars (the U.S. Defense Department uses them), this one features sets of players. On one side is Bullock’s President John Hotham and his team white-knuckling through the unscripted scenario in the (fake) Situation Room; on the other is a fictional group of extremists, the Order of Columbus, who are loyal to the losing candidate, Gov. Robert Strickland (Chris Coffey, an actor). Among the rebels is a cool cat (Kris Goldsmith, an Army veteran), who, from another location, approves moves and disinformation while elsewhere the game’s designers and consultants observe the proceedings.This particular game had one overarching rule: The president and his team have six hours to quell the revolt and ensure the “peaceful transfer of power,” parameters that, as the clock runs out, give it mounting urgency. The movie’s directors, Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber, working with Vet Voice, built sets and, using moody lighting, sleek camerawork and brisk editing, gave the game dramatic shape and momentum, paring down its six hours into a fast-moving 94-minute intrigue. The players did their part, too, of course: Bullock is definitely leading man material, even if, as the crisis deepens, he’s upstaged by Heidi Heitkamp, a former U.S. senator from North Dakota who plays his tough-talking senior adviser.Vet Voice’s appealing C.E.O., Janessa Goldbeck, a former combat engineer officer in the Marine Corps, takes on dual roles here as the game’s onscreen no-nonsense producer and the voice of the offscreen governor of Arizona. When she’s not hovering with the other game producers and consultants — these include the retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and the conservative standard-bearer Bill Kristol — Goldbeck fills in some details. This war game, she explains, was inspired by a sobering 2021 Washington Post opinion piece by Paul D. Eaton, Antonio M. Taguba and Steven M. Anderson, all retired U.S. Army generals.“We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time,” the three wrote, urging the Defense Department to “war-game the next potential postelection insurrection.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Girls State’ Review: One Nation, Under Girls

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      Balancing confidence with broad smiles, the high school students in this documentary understand that camaraderie goes hand in hand with political ambition.In 2018, over 1,000 boys gathered in Texas for an elaborate, weeklong program aimed at students interested in politics. This meeting of teenage minds — part of a countrywide initiative sponsored by the American Legion — was captured in the Sundance hit “Boys State,” a vérité chronicle of the event, where participants are elected by their peers to different positions in government.Considering that movie’s success, it hardly comes as a surprise that the filmmakers, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, used their momentum to produce the follow-up “Girls State.” The directors shot the documentary in 2022 at Lindenwood University, in St. Charles, Mo., where, the movie repeatedly notes, it’s the first time that the boys and girls groups are holding their events simultaneously on the same campus.If you are imagining coed frivolity or drama, though, think again: These motivated girls are only concerned about the boys insofar as their proximity highlights the lack of parity between their programs. We meet Emily Worthmore, one of the film’s central subjects, as she ticks off achievements. At Girls State, Emily, a conservative Christian, hopes to be elected governor, a goal she shares with the left-leaning Cecilia Bartin, who canvasses the lunchroom by shouting from a chair. Others, including Nisha Murali, eye seats on the program’s Supreme Court, which the attendees anticipate will hear an abortion case.If the vibe of “Boys State” is that of a Young Republicans conference, the atmosphere at “Girls State” suggests a freshman orientation. By turns giddy and gutsy, the students share in communal songs, icebreakers and empowerment sessions. They seem to intuit that camaraderie goes hand in hand with political ambition, and that they shouldn’t take the curriculum, or themselves, too seriously. Here, cute selfies and résumé building receive equal attention.Modesty, sympathy, generosity — these are valuable qualities in life and not necessarily in documentary cinema, where tension often acts as a narrative engine. The film tries to complicate its sororal ethos by pointing to the ways in which women are socialized to strive for perfection and avoid raising a stink. But as the film goes on to track a series of frictionless exercises in campaigning, litigation and reporting, one wishes there were more complex ideas introduced in tandem.“Girls State” uncovers a fascinating division early on after Emily remarks that she has no trouble identifying the girls who lean liberal. “Maybe they’re just,” she pauses, searching for a diplomatic term. “Louder?” The filmmakers pair this observation with a shot in which a cluster of attendees, led by Cecilia, joyfully chant Pitbull lyrics while Emily and others watch from the side.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Mission’ Review: Blinded by the Light

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      A documentary tries to bring context to the actions of John Allen Chau, an American missionary who was killed in 2018.The simplest way to look at the actions of John Allen Chau, an American who was killed in 2018 trying to introduce Christianity to the inhabitants of a remote island in the Indian Ocean, is that they were reckless and arrogant.Nothing in “The Mission,” a documentary from Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, proves inconsistent with that assessment. But the movie strives to add context to what one interviewee calls Chau’s “horse-blinder focus,” which apparently let him think that he could convert the people who lived on North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Sea. The islanders had long resisted outside contact.The film paints Chau, who died at 26, as a young man who had absorbed colonial fantasies. He didn’t act alone; at crucial points, he received help from others who shared his beliefs. Some of Chau’s friends and associates still speak of him with admiration.In voice-over, actors read excerpts from Chau’s writing and from a letter that his father, Patrick Chau, a psychiatrist, shared with the filmmakers. That the North Sentinelese’s perspective is absent is not lost on the directors. (“We’re telling a story about us, not about them,” cautions Adam Goodheart, a historian who has written about North Sentinel Island, near the end.) The most barbed aspect of the movie, a National Geographic release, is its acknowledgment of the role that National Geographic itself has played in exoticizing groups like the North Sentinelese.Some of this background comes off like making excuses for Chau’s fanaticism. More helpful is Dan Everett, a linguist who spent years trying to convert the Pirahã people of Brazil and ultimately changed his perspective. Chillingly, Everett notes that Chau’s supporters were simultaneously saddened and elated by the death. “He will become famous in the church,” Everett says. That could be bad news for the North Sentinelese.The MissionRated PG-13 for exoticized nudity. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Mayor Pete’ Review: Politics Is Local

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      This film, which follows Pete Buttigieg on his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, rarely captures him in what looks like an unselfconscious moment.We already knew Pete Buttigieg was good on camera. For “Mayor Pete,” the documentarian Jesse Moss followed Buttigieg — the current transportation secretary and former mayor of South Bend, Ind. — during his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. But the resulting portrait rarely captures him in what looks like an unselfconscious moment.Maybe Buttigieg is always on. “In my way of coming at the world, the stronger an emotion is, the more private it is,” he says in an interview for the film. He chafes against consultants’ advice that he “let loose” and be himself — because letting loose, he says, would not be being himself. The movie does show him singing a “Schoolhouse Rock” tune as he signs papers at his mayor’s desk.But Moss — a director of “Boys State,” in a sense a companion look at political novices finding their voices — hasn’t succeeded in becoming a fly on the wall, if such a thing is possible during a heavily photographed campaign. (“The War Room” focused on strategists, not the candidate.) Showing Buttigieg at one public appearance after another, “Mayor Pete” more often plays like outtakes from the trail than an inside glimpse.Occasionally the movie encounters situations that appear as if they weren’t intended to be filmed, as when Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, points out that he’s not going to be positioned as prominently as other candidates’ spouses in Iowa. Later, in South Carolina, Chasten encourages his weary spouse to deliver yet another speech (“Everything you’re going to say is new to them”). For a minute, you can see Buttigieg let a private emotion through.Mayor PeteRated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Amazon. More