In a surprising opening to a balls-to-the-wall combat movie, Warfare begins with Eric Prydz’s ‘Call On Me’ video (the one with the sexy ’80s aerobics sesh), as watched by a gang of grunts ogling, vibing and thrusting along to every gyration. They – and us, as an audience – need to hold onto the memory because it’s the last bit of fun anyone will be having for the next 90-odd minutes. Prydz always comes before a fall.
A military advisor on Alex Garland’s Civil War, former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza survived a full-on firefight that left his comrade Elliott Miller with a traumatic injury and no memory of the horror. Co-written and directed by Garland and Mendoza, Warfare is a forensic, immersive act of remembrance that catapults you into the heat of battle.
The pair aren’t interested in interpersonal relationships, character development or political points of view (this is very US-centric, but not tub-thumpingly patriotic). Instead, Warfare is intense, brutal, visceral, horrific. The squeamish need not apply.
The set-up is simple. On November 19, 2006 in Ramadi, Iraq, a squad of US Navy SEALs steal into an urban residential area controlled by Al-Qaeda forces under cover of night. Their mission? To clear a safe passage for the ground forces arriving the following day. For the film’s first stretch, very little happens. Warfare leaves in the bits most war films cut out, as we get to watch a squad going through their routines and protocols. There is boredom, a struggle to get a signal, and weeing in a bottle. Garland and Mendoza make no concession to the audience. The jargon-heavy dialogue is never explained and is only concerned with the job at hand – there are no chats about hopes, dreams or sweethearts back home.
Even when the inciting incident comes – a grenade tossed through a sniper’s hole – it is dealt with matter-of-factly; they’re a group of professionals handling an irritant that’s part of their job.
Warfare is a granular, clear-eyed dispatch from a fucked-up front line
It takes the evacuation of the injured to upset the status quo, but not Garland and Mendoza’s commitment to keeping things authentic. What actually happens in the aftermath of explosion? How difficult is to drag a body from a street and into the sanctity of a house? This is unbridled chaos – administering a shot of morphine, a soldier stabs the needle into his own thumb – and the filmmaking conveys every aspect of the bedlam. Outside the house, the soundscape is a neverending din. Inside, it’s neverending screams.
From The Beach to Civil War, a lot of Garland’s work has tipped its camouflaged helmet to Apocalypse Now, but Warfare is operating in a completely different register. The hostilities here are not operatic or a jumping-off point for big philosophical discussions. Backed by an across-the-board committed cast of young Hollywood hotshots – including Will Poulter, May December’s Charles Melton, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Cosmo Jarvis, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor – Warfare is a granular, clear-eyed dispatch from a fucked-up front line.
It might not say anything particularly new – yep, war was as hellish in Ramadi as it was on the Somme – but it delivers a powerful gut punch.
In cinemas worldwide Apr 18, 2025.