The Second Civil War

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The Second Civil War is a drama film made for the HBO cable television network and first shown on March 15, 1997.

Directed by Joe Dante, this was a satire about anti-immigrant sentiment in the melting pot that is the United States.^[1]

The film was shown in theaters in Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands and France in 1997 and 1998, before being released on videotape. The DVD was released in 2005. Beau Bridges won the 1997 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special for his portrayal of a Governor of Idaho who decides to close that state's borders to immigrants, precipitating a national crisis.

Other actors were James Earl Jones, Elizabeth Peña and Denis Leary as reporters for a CNN like cable network, ("NN"); Phil Hartman as a not very bright U.S. President, James Coburn as his spin doctor and William Schallert as his more pragmatic Secretary of Defense. Brian Keith portrayed a general in one of his final movie roles.^[2]

[edit] Plot summary

The 1997 film is set in the near future, apparently 2003 (twelve years after the 1991 Gulf War and the year before the next presidential election). Foreign immigration has increased to the point that the Mayor of Los Angeles speaks only in Spanish, Rhode Island has a Chinese-American governor, and Alabama has a congressman from India. When an atomic weapon is used in Pakistan, an international organization makes plans to bring orphans to Idaho. The governor (Bridges) orders the state's National Guard to close its borders. The President of the United States (Hartman) at first decides to set a 72-hour deadline for the governor, but on advice from his political advisor (Coburn), changes it to 67 1/2 hours to prevent the news from interrupting Susan Lucci's farewell appearance on the soap opera All My Children. Meanwhile, the NN cable network is reporting the events and influencing them at the same time. The crisis worsens as the Alamo is destroyed by rioters, and neighboring states send their own National Guard units to defend Idaho against a U.S. Army invasion. Miscommunication leads to an invasion ahead of the deadline; and hostilities break out. At the movie's close, news reports indicate that hostilities have ceased, but the immigration issue is unresolved.