- Content: “Political Drama Descends into Cinemarxist Chaos”
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What You Need To Know:
EDDINGTON has some insightful, and funny, political points. However, when the Sheriff turn his feud with the Mayor into a personal conflict, the movie’s politics loses its focus. Eventually, EDDINGTON descends into confused Neo-Marxist chaos. It becomes just another shallow radical attack on liberty and values. EDDINGTON also has many strong obscenities and profanities and lots of gratuitous, graphic violence.
Content:
Very strong humanist and politically correct worldview with a very strong but confused and shallow Marxist and Neo-Marxist attack on liberty and values, although the movie starts off with some cogent, insightful, and funny commentary against government overreach during the COVID lockdowns and mask orders and some funny comedy about Anti-American and woke protests these days, especially the young white Marxists involved in them who seem rather shallow and ironically wracked by white guilt because they pose as spokespeople for people of color and Native Americans, plus one character seems to be New Age one moment where he says a new god is rising, then says he has the Holy Spirit and is fortified in Christ another moment;
At least 71 obscenities (including at least 43 “f” words), two profanities mentioning Jesus, one GD profanity, and five light profanities;
Some very strong violence when a group of thugs start shooting up a town and the local sheriff starts fighting back by getting weapons from a local gun shop, a man’s leg is shot off, a man has a knife plunged into his skull, a bomb explodes and kills a man with blood and gore spraying and a charred hand is shown, a man is shot in the leg and head, a man is shot in the body and face, some pushing and shoving during a street protest that starts to get out of hand, a man and the sheriff uses a rifle to murder his political opponent and murder the man’s son;
No sex scenes but some light sexual references such as woman denies her husband conjugal relations (they sleep with a row of pillows between them), woman says her father raped her when she and some other people mention pedophilia, man publicly says his political rival raped his wife when they were young and she had an abortion, a minor character wants to be called they/them, and a male teenager jokingly urges another male teenager to text a photo of his genitals;
Full frontal male nudity when a nude paralyzed man is moved in one scene;
Some alcohol use includes underage teenage beer drinking at an outdoor gathering and a homeless man seems drunk whenever he appears;
People smoke cigarettes briefly, and two teenagers smoke marijuana; and,
The fictional mayor of a town tries to enforce unconstitutional mandates from the governor of New Mexico during the alleged COVID pandemic, but the movie lightly mocks what he’s doing, the Hispanic mayor’s major political opponent (a white sheriff) seems to be acting righteously for a time but then he goes bonkers and assassinates the mayor and his teenage son and tries to frame a black deputy sheriff for the murders.
More Detail:
The story opens in May 2020 with the county sheriff in Eddington, New Mexico, Joe Cross, objecting to the Mayor, Ted Garcia’s, COVID lockdown and mask mandate. Sheriff Cross argues that the mandates violate freedom of choice. After confrontations with the Mayor, Cross decides to run against him. He also questions the Mayor’s support for a data center that could drain the city’s water resources.
Meanwhile, in the wake of George Floyd’s drug overdose during a confrontation with local police in Minneapolis, Minn., the Mayor’s son, Eric, and two of his friends take part in Anti-American, anti-police protests in Eddington. As the protests get larger and more rowdy, Sheriff Cross and his deputies try to control the chaotic crowd.
At his first political rally, Sheriff Cross goes off the deep end and accuses Mayor Garcia of raping his troubled wife when she was younger. The sheriff’s wife denies the accusation, and the night before had even hinted it was her father who raped her. She leaves town with a local religious cult leader.
The next day, Sheriff Cross invades a big campaign party at the Mayor’s house. Cross turns off the music being played, but the Mayor turns it on again. As the two men stand staring at each other, Mayor Garcia deliberately slaps Sheriff Cross in the face, and Cross just walks away.
That night, Cross turns to deadly violence in revenge, and the movie goes downhill from there.
Before the Sheriff’s crazy accusation against the Mayor, EDDINGTON has some fun, interesting displays of today’s political confrontations. It even dares to criticize humorously some of the leftist political tropes of the day. For example, the white leaders of the street protests in the movie keep apologizing for being white while protesting in favor of Black Lives Matter and Native Americans.
However, once the conservative Sheriff in the movie turns his political beef with the Mayor into a personal one, EDDINGTON loses its focus. It descends into just another violent, shallow attack on the personal character of conservatives and their values, especially those who felt, like Sheriff Cross in the movie, that America’s elected officials went too far with their COVID restrictions. The movie offers no counterpoint to the young leftist protestors in the story, who just spout social justice platitudes and spread chaos. Then, in the middle of the story, the movie leaves the COVID debate and the protestors behind and becomes a murder investigation with the Sheriff as a prime suspect trying to cover up his crimes. [SPOILERS FOLLOW] Finally, in the third act, it introduces a completely different plot twist having nothing to do with what’s been happening between the people in the town. The twist leads to lots of bloody action violence, followed by an ironic coda where the Sheriff gets his comeuppance, his annoying mother-in-law gets rich and famous, and his ex-wife marries the cult leader and becomes pregnant. Throughout all this, the filmmakers make no attempt at explaining the actions of the Sheriff’s wife or the background to their estranged relationship, which opens the movie.
The movie’s extreme violence includes lots of strong foul language. There’s also a gratuitous, explicit shot of the Sheriff’s private parts, meaning that Joaquin Phoenix, who plays the Sheriff, gets to let his freak flag fly.
