Rating: NR | Runtime: 89 minutes
Release Date: May 16th, 2024 (Italy) / May 16th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Lucky Red / Grasshopper Film
Director(s): Roberto Minervini
Writer(s): Roberto Minervini / Roberto Minervini, Jeremiah Knupp & Tim Carlson (story)

We’ve crossed that line. I don’t think there’s any going back.

Documentarian Roberto Minervini steps into the fictional narrative sector with Civil War drama The Damned by pretty much setting up an historical reenactment and shooting it like a documentary.

It’s winter, 1862 and a contingent of Union volunteers have been dispatched to patrol the uncharted western United States in case any Confederate soldiers were making their way north to set-up camps or move east for an attack. Led by their sergeant (Tim Carlson), these men search the ridges and talk about their guns to pass the time. They hope to be ready once shots are fired.

Jeremiah Knupp’s scout proves the de facto lead. He only joined the war six months prior, but knows his way around the plains and a rifle. He engages with crack shot Cuyler Ballenger and the reliable René W. Solomon as tensions escalate into a firefight about forty minutes in. From there, these four (and one of the sergeant’s sons, played by Noah Carlson) head out to carve a path to higher ground and extend their line. More conversations are had. More existential crises are confronted.

And that’s the film. The drama hinges on the uncertainty of whether Confederate soldiers will arrive. The narrative balances upon a collection of intriguing debates about God’s place in war, boys becoming men, family versus country, and survival first. We never really get to know who these men are beyond their archetypes or see where they’re going (unless one tragically dies on-screen), but we begin to learn about the psychology of soldiers through them.

These are Civil War dudes doing Civil War things without any real grasp on why they’re fighting beyond admittedly hollow ideals of duty or bravery. It’s mankind’s fear amidst the beauty of nature with mortality hanging by a thread. Some will be bored to tears. Others will embrace the philosophical undertones born from their realization that participation all but ensures their demise. Maybe not physically on the battlefield, but emotionally in their souls.

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Jeremiah Knupp in THE DAMNED; courtesy of Grasshopper Film.