Warfare, co-directed by Alex Garland and military veteran Ray Mendoza, is a war/anti-war film unlike any other. It features an absolutely stacked cast of whos’ who of young up and coming male actors, and aims to retell a story based on the personal experiences and real-life memories of Mendoza and his Navy SEAL team during an overwatch mission in the Iraq war.
The first act of the film is unique in its quiet tension. We are not only introduced to the various characters with their helmets off but get insight to their little jokes and camaraderie – each moment of humanity a stark contrast to the situation surrounding them. The other thing you learn is what it must actually be like to be in a military situation like that – how much waiting and boredom mixed with anticipation there must be, and the constant sense of tension that at any moment anything might happen – or it might not. This is cinematic edging at its finest.
Even once the action starts, Warfare remains incredibly intimate, authentic, anxiety-inducing, with the most immersive sound design in years. The opening scene and ending scene are polar opposites but pitch-perfect in their own ways. As you might expect, there are plenty of gruesome and gory moments that are hard to swallow, with some stranger-than-life details that could only have come from real life (let’s just say I’ve never considered the details of dragging a body around or the administration of morphine as much as I had in this film). And your senses are numbed at certain points in time. It strikes you that these are just who are not only experiencing these things and having to make split-second, life-or-death decisions that it would almost unimaginable to have to make in these circumstances. But thanks to this movie we do have an inkling.
But what will last in the memory (and have been gleaned form real-life memories) are everything in between, from the quiet to the chaos. If Ebert was right that films can be empathy machines, they can also be trauma vehicles as well. This may not be a film that you watch over and over again, but if you do see it, be sure to catch it on the biggest screen and best sound possible.
Now playing in theatres.
