“The South won the Civil War.” Well, that’s a new one for me. Ummmm, so, uh, fellas, where exactly did slavery go? The people who march with Confederate Flags just decided on emancipation by themselves, did they? Yeah, there’s no version of the United States where that makes sense. And that’s the joke in Sword of Trust, a movie that should have come out about five years ago cuz it’s darn near useless now.
Estranged heir Cynthia (Jillian Bell) has come to Birmingham, Alabama with her partner, Mary (Michaela Watkins), to claim an estate. Sorry, ladies, reverse mortgage. The estate belongs to the bank, but you can have this neat sword and a rambling idiocy from your demented grandfather. Enjoy!
The sword is a genuine Union (sorry, that’s “Army of Northern Aggressors”) artifact and there is distinct value to any Civil War sword. But the story, if true, turns the sword from artifact to historic. That story? Well, the lovely handwriting illustrated that some time in eighteen-hundred blankety-blank, either Northern General [William Tecumseh] Sherman or Northern General [Phil] Sheridan surrendered the weapon at the battle of Chick___ (“Pea?” “en Little?” “en Foot?”), thus “proving” the South won the Civil War. This is a story so easily full of chicken feet, it could be refuted by any standard American history textbook not issued by the state of Texas. Could the author have intended the Battle of Chickamauga? That was, indeed, a significant Southern victory, and the last such of 1863 before the fall of Chattanooga. Sherman, of course, did not participate in Chickamauga and was never a POW. Sheridan wasn’t even in the same hemisphere. It would have been mighty tough for Sherman to scorch Atlanta and demolish Georgia a year later had he been taken prisoner and sent to Andersonville. And yet, it would have been tougher still to capture Sheridan four states away.
Enter pawn shop operator Mel (Marc Maron) and his flunkee, Nathaniel (Jon Bass). This is Marc Maron’s film as much as anybody in the cast, and, hence, perhaps reason enough for me not giving it a pass. He doesn’t believe the Chickencroc story that the women sell but, recognizing an opportunity, finds a possible buyer among deluded Civil War conspiracy theorists. He offers to broker a deal so they all make money. What could go wrong? Like there’s anything dangerous about a bunch of armed and defensive folk who believe the South won the Civil War.
Sword of Trust is really just a one-joke movie – a joke that was much funnier when you could laugh at it. “Ha ha! Conspiracy theorists are so weird!” But the joke becomes increasingly less funny when you realize that uneducated conspiracy theorists hold more political power than you do. Lemme put it this way: Congress spent $6.8M on eight separate Benghazi investigations; they yielded zero indictments and zero arrests (not really comparable to Mueller’s investigation, now are they?) The millions of us who correctly saw Benghazi as a big nothing – you think the years of an all-red congress wouldn’t have charged Hillary if they had anything at all? HAH! We people who saw the genuine witch hunt? We all failed to get our candidate elected. The morons who believe, however, that Benghazi was some sort of insidious Hillary Clinton piece of treason, that climate change is a hoax, that dinosaurs never existed, and that pizzagate was real – those people, more-or-less, got their guy elected. They have a say in the government. Their voices are stronger than any scientist who has actually discovered the Earth is warming unnaturally, or those of any citizen who points out the President needs to be held accountable for his many, many indiscretions. This film was relevant back when congress did that kind of thing.
Americans may be in for a surprise
The South won, don’t you realize?
And yet, we’ll accede
For among the stampede
It’s no bigger than most of Trump’s lies
Rated R, 88 Minutes
Director: Lynn Shelton
Writer: Lynn Shelton, Michael Patrick O’Brien
Genre: Laughing at rednecks
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Conspiracy theorists
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People fully aware of the damage caused by conspiracy theorists
