Warfare

W
 
four stars

Alex Garland returns to the frontline with his blistering recreation of a real-life showdown between US Navy Seals and Iraqi insurgents.

Warfare

The waiting game: Kit Connor
Image courtesy of A24 Films.

Even when war is painted as hell, the cinema has tended to bring a gung-ho frisson to the genre. But in Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s Warfare there is no vicarious thrill – and no heroes – just confusion, pain and chaos. Mendoza served as a US Navy Seal in Iraq and brings a virtually unprecedented authenticity to the film, while Garland contributes his cinematic expertise (which is considerable). It was Garland who wrote and directed Civil War, a highly accomplished, provocative and numbing cinematic experience (on which Mendoza worked as military advisor).

Warfare provides the caption “this film uses only their memories” and introduces us to a tight-knit group of Navy Seals stationed in Ramadi, western Iraq, in November of 2006. The first scene we see is more surprising than shocking as a bevy of sparsely clad dancers suggestively cavort to Eric Prydz’s ‘Call On Me’, as if plucked from Elisabeth Sparkle’s exercise class in The Substance. It is swiftly apparent that what we are witnessing is a video designed to boost the morale and solidarity of the soldiers of Alpha One platoon. You can almost smell the testosterone. We then cut to a quiet street scene in Ramadi, sparsely populated by locals going about their daily business, largely viewed through the crosshairs of lead sniper Elliott Miller (Cosmo Jarvis), to whom the film is dedicated. The deceptive serenity and the baby-faced, expectant countenances of the Navy Seals creates an almost unbearable sense of anticipation. There is no music, just the muffled voices of the soldiers and the static of a two-way radio. To accentuate the realism, the company uses the jargon of the Navy Seals, all building to a documentary-like authenticity. You can feel your toes curl.

Unlike most film directors, Ray Mendoza also happens to be the protagonist of this PTSD-inducing experience, recounting his involvement in the wake of the Battle of Ramadi. He is the platoon’s communications officer and is played by D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (FX on Hulu’s Reservation Dogs), and looks young enough to be in high school. Whereas most Hollywood high school movies feature actors who look old enough to captain a military squadron, the Seals in Warfare look the real thing, young men with little real-world experience. The London-born, former child actor Will Poulter plays the platoon’s Officer in Charge, while the London-born, former child actor Kit Connor (who plays the inexperienced gunner Tommy) has just turned 21, but still looks younger.

Realism is the strong suit of Warfare, a film that shows war as it really is: unpredictable and unjust, equal parts tedium and tension. Set in real time, it takes no sides but just shows it as it really was on that brutal November day, based entirely on the memories of the men involved. Of course, it is traumatic viewing, and that is the point, with an extra helping of painfully recollected detail. There are no heroes, only victims, and yet world leaders continue to dispatch human beings to be maimed and slaughtered for their own political ends. As a piece of cinema, Warfare is superlative – unparalleled even – but also one-sided and, in its own way, still jingoistic.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast
: D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, Joseph Quinn, Charles Melton, Taylor John Smith, Michael Gandolfini, Adain Bradley, Noah Centineo, Evan Holtzman, Henrique Zaga. 

Dir Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, Pro Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, Matthew Penry-Davey and Peter Rice, Screenplay Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, Ph David J. Thompson, Pro Des Mark Digby, Ed Fin Oates, Costumes David Crossman and Neil Murphy, Sound Glenn Freemantle, Military advisor Tim Chappell, Dialect coach Sonja Field.  

DNA Films-A24 Films.
95 mins. UK/USA. 2025. US Rel: 11 April 2025. UK Rel: 18 April 2025. Cert. 15.

 
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