If you dive deep enough into my Letterboxd you'll see I'm a pretty big Alex Garland guy. His recent efforts have been quite divisive, but I've appreciated all of his directorial efforts and absolutely love Ex Machina and Annihilation. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from his latest outing, a co-directing effort with real-life war veteran Ray Mendoza. The end result is what may be my top film of the year so far.
Warfare follows an Iraq-stationed Navy SEAL team on a surveillance mission that goes wrong in hostile territory. Told in real time, the team is forced to fight for their lives with their enemies surrounding them as they wait for evacuation.
If you need character development, this one isn't going to be for you. The film opens with the team having fun together as they watch an old workout video, then thrusts us into the battlefield with them. That's just about all the time we get to know them, as we're then thrust into their surveillance mission that ultimately goes awry. This isn't a film that glorifies war in any way, the first act can honestly be boring at times as we ultimately wait for things to go wrong as the team goes about their fairly mundane tasks. Those moments aren't exciting by any means, but I found them crucial in putting us into the head spaces of the soldiers we're following.
When things take a turn for the worse, this becomes a masterclass in war genre filmmaking. Mendoza and Garland mesh together pretty perfectly behind the camera, with Mendoza's experience making this feel incredibly authentic, and Garland bringing his technical knowledge to deliver strong craft to bring this story to life. The sound work is especially impressive, with the explosives and gunshots filling your ears to an anxiety inducing extent at times, only for the sound to be completely cut out to create some truly crushing moments. The practical effects are also incredible, whether it be the explosives or the makeup. Everything just works in unison to create something that feels real, and in feeling so real it becomes a pretty gut wrenching experience.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the stellar ensemble cast Garland and Mendoza brought to this project. This is a great grouping of up and coming actors who all buy in and deliver terrific performances. Will Poulter and Charles Melton are the two leaders and both are fantastic. Poulter's character struggles over the course of the film with the actions taking place, while Melton comes in and maintains his composure remarkably well, offering two different looks at how these kinds of conflicts can affect the leaders. D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Joseph Quinn, Taylor John Smith, Michael Galdonfini, and Kit Connor all have their fair share of strong moments, but perhaps the best performance here is from Cosmo Jarvis whose character I think was the most interesting.
I've seen some complain that this film, like Garland's previous film Civil War, isn't taking a side, or that it isn't essentially saying anything other than war being bad. I don't think it needs to though, Mendoza is telling a story very personal to him and to gripe about him and Garland not telling you what they think about the war in Iraq I think is missing the point a bit. I thought this was an excellently crafted work that gets under your skin thanks to how authentic it all feels. 4/5
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