Time: 95 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – Depicts graphic & realistic war scenes
Cast:
D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Ray Mendoza
Will Poulter as Erik
Cosmo Jarvis as Elliott Miller
Kit Connor as Tommy
Joseph Quinn as Sam
Charles Melton as Jake
Finn Bennett as John
Director: Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland

While I generally like Alex Garland’s directed movies, I was a little skeptical about Warfare with it being an Iraq war movie that’s co-directed by an Iraq war veteran and the premise sounded like yet another war is hell movie. For what it’s worth, I do think that it was better than expected.

The main thing to note about Warfare is that it is based on one of the experiences of soldiers’ own war memories and experiences (including co-director Ray Mendoza), and is conveying that on screen. It’s also less focussed on narrative and character and with stronger emphasis on putting you in the perspectives of these soldiers going through their situation. It’s also not as much of an action movie, instead taking a rather realistic and grounded approach. It begins slowly and the moment the first explosion goes off, it dials up all the way and sustains the level of tension all the way to the end. It’s certainly not an easy movie to watch, it’s deliberately by design for people to not get catharsis from it. There have been talks since Warfare’s announcement about whether it’s war propaganda, first it being a movie set in Iraq, but especially that it’s from one of the director’s perspective and experience from being in Iraq. Oddly placed epilogue aside, it didn’t feel like war propaganda to me. It doesn’t have commentary about the US’s actions in the middle east or the Iraqi perspective during it but at least it seems like it understood what its intentions were. It’s a movie more about survival than about patriotism, it’s deliberately making you feel miserable and emphasises how really nothing was achieved from this operation. It also has a very detached approach to portraying this event. We barely know anything about these people, they don’t go through character development and there’s not much emotional investment. However, I do think it’s partly on purpose and the lack of context helps. I appreciate how mundane it felt and doesn’t try to tug on the heartstrings with melodrama, instead emphasising the meaninglessness of war. That said, there isn’t much meaning to this movie beyond “war is hell”. So for me it was a pretty solid war experience more than something that resonated with me emotionally.

There is a pretty big cast here with D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Charles Melton, Michael Gandolfini, Cosmo Jarvis, Will Poulter and more. They are certainly in service to the story and don’t really stand out on their own. But together as an ensemble, they are believable and work well together.

The direction from Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza was strong. The intention was clearly to make this movie a visceral experience and I think they delivered, feeling claustrophobic and tense throughout. The cinematography is great, and the editing is top notch. The sound design is impressive with loud explosions and gunshots, and the lack of a score added to the immersion.

Warfare is very simple and doesn’t say a lot, but is still a visceral, grounded and intense war movie, top notch on a technical level, and with a solid cast.