I don’t know about you but one of the things my closest friends and I did growing up was grabbing our fake weapons, heading into our backyards and declaring war upon each other. I would climb up onto the roof of my shed with my ridiculous looking musket and try and snipe my friend as he would stealthily maneuver around the marsh trying to sneak up on me. Eventually one of us would yell bang and call out “gotcha, you’re dead.” Usually we would admit defeat but, like any child sometimes you knew they just missed and refused to die, shouting back “no you didn’t.” If you take this concept, increase the size of the teams and add a capture the flag element to it you basically have the premise for Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson’s action/comedy/drama hybrid I Declare War.
In I Declare War, two groups of 12 year olds battle it out in the forest in a high stakes war game of capture the flag. Armed with their imagination, balloons filled with red paint are the equivalent of grenades and are the only items that can kill you, sticks, twigs and pieces of tree are various weapons like bazookas and submachine guns, once hit you are downed for 10 “steamboats” and the only way to win the game is if one team captures the enemies flag. General PK (Gage Munroe) is undefeated and excited about winning this war but what starts out as a mostly innocent game begins to turn more violent and serious as PK’s enemy Skinner (Michael Friend) takes over as General of the other team and is willing to do anything in order to defeat PK, bending the rules and bringing some unfortunate real life elements into this fantastical summer game.
Firstly, the coolest part about I Declare War is the smooth transitions back and forth between the imaginative state of the kids and what it looks like in reality. When the film opens we see the kids with homemade twig guns but then as they begin to shoot they turn into authentic looking submachine guns firing at rapid speeds. Toss in the grenades which have massive explosions and you’ve got yourself a real battle. It made me think about my childhood and exactly how I acted at that age. All I could do was sit there with a giant smile on my face the entire time as kids were attempting to gun each other down.
Another aspect of the movie which I really appreciated was the standard wartime archetypes that we find in so many war films. You’ve got the good general who knows his combat strategy but willing to make sacrifices of his soldiers and friends in order to win, you’ve got the innocent and wimpy guy who won’t pull the trigger and allows his comrade to die, a dark skinned silent type with an animal who is good at tracking, and you’ve got the unstable, aggressive soldier who wants to lead but then doesn’t have a real plan to follow through. You’ve seen these characters in movies like Saving Private Ryan, Patton and Full Metal Jacket and now you can see them as 12 year old boys simulating war.
The biggest downside to the film is the inconsistent acting. At time
s it is truly impressive how convincing these kids are, especially PK who rattles off military history, commands and strategy as if it’s second nature, but other times they are either overacting or just aren’t able to persuade us with the emotion that they are going for. You could tell some were more comfortable than others but it was usually the ones who had to be either extremely angry or very vulnerable that weren’t able to shine through, except Siam Yu as Kwon, PK’s best friend, I thought he did a solid job at portraying all of his emotions. There was also a side plot involving a girl’s crush on one of the General’s and her talking to him as an imaginary friend and while I understand why it was included, I don’t think the film needed that subplot.
I Declare War isn’t a film for everyone but it will resonate deeply with those who have ever played war as a kid, play paintball, enjoy military history or even serve or have served in the army. It’s one of those films that would cause controversy if it were a mainstream title due to the imaginative violence, which may remind people of school shootings, and the foul language these kids speak in the film, but that’s part of the allure of the movie. It’s an engrossing and realistic film about an imaginative game that begins to blend real life situations and emotions into the war, something that always ends up happening when you play make believe with people who you have personal relationships with, you end up showing your true colors when you least expect it. It’s a film that shows how easy it is to get caught up in battle and how people, no matter what the age, are willing to do anything in order to achieve victory.
Rating: A clever and imaginative homage to the war games of our youth (6.8/10)
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