It’s been correctly noted that it’s impossible to make a combat movie* without glorifying said combat in some way. Even the films most critical of war ultimately make combat look pretty cool on some level, even if they do so inadvertently. Case in point: Saving Private Ryan. It’s an excellent film, and it’s most certainly critical of war itself. But within its masterful story an effect is used to capture moments of, for lack of better term, shell shock: the sound cuts out, the imagery gets foggy, and everyone on screen is disoriented by whatever concussive bit of artillery just did its thing. At the time of release it was the first time I’d ever seen this effect employed, and every film that depicts combat since then has used it. It’s an effective way to show the fog of war, and in the able hands of Steven Spielberg, it’s rather artful. Downright poetic, even. But in Warfare, a film that claims to come directly from the memories of a man who lived through the onscreen events, the same effect is applied to very different result. It is not artful. It is not poetic — It’s horrifying. It feels not like a cinematic flourish, but a literal representation, giving life to an experience that, in the real world, most definitely sucks.
It’s a nightmare. It’s something I’d never wish on my worst enemy.
At no point during this post-explosion haze was I given reason to think “wow” or “cool.” Never did I go “how did they do that?!?”
Nope, all I could think was: “these poor kids are so young,” followed by a dejected, hopeless “what is it all for?”
Warfare is written and directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza, the former being the filmmaker behind Civil War, a new classic in the anti-war canon, and the latter being a former Navy Seal and Iraq War veteran whose literal experiences were mined to create this film. Told in real time, the film chronicles a harrowing day during the Battle of Ramadi, one of the outright deadliest of the Iraq War.
The film opens with our protagonists enjoying a small bit of levity. The titillating (and if you’ve seen it, hilarious) music video for Eric Prydz’s Call On Me plays on a small television while our young platoon of Navy Seals dance, laugh, and cavort, enjoying a bit of boyish mischief between what is surely a series of awful scenarios. Joy and brotherhood are on display as the bouncy tune fills the air. This is the last time for the next 95 minutes that music will come from the multiplex speakers. The rest of the film features none.
Next we are dropped right into a mission. The squadron moves through the streets of Iraq under cover of night. The final remnants of playfulness come in the form of a few lewd gestures between the young men, and before long it’s all business. With clinical efficiency the soldiers take possession of a home. They rally its denizens into an upstairs room and then set up shop. A hole is hammered in the wall, through which the sights of a large rifle can scan for potential targets. Everyone takes their position and waits for orders. Daylight comes, and what starts as simple reconnaissance quickly becomes dangerous.
Warfare chronicles an intense fight for survival against an amorphous enemy, an unfriendly terrain, and the limits imposed by the bureaucracy that hinders American military might. There are no punches pulled on any level, and as such it is a punishing movie to watch — which is precisely the point.
With last year’s Civil War, Alex Garland attempted to tell a wartime tale devoid of any current cultural context. This didn’t sit well with a lot of moviegoers who had difficulty meeting the film at its stated objective. Among other aspects of the film, it was impossible for some viewers not to see the on-screen President as a Trump stand-in, despite the fact that the filmmakers explicitly stated he wasn’t. They also had a hard time reconciling the notion that Texas would ever team up with California in a secession effort — missing the entire point of this fiction if you ask me. The goal was to tell a story more about humans and our violent propensities than about any one political era, and pains were taken to eliminate any 1:1 comparisons to contemporary events.
I’d say it was a success, but many would disagree. With Warfare, Garland uses a different method to achieve similar ends. Being a true story, there’s. plenty of cultural and historical context to be had, but much like the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, the harrowing nature of what is depicted forces the viewer to ask if any context at all can justify what they’re seeing on screen. Is any line in the sand — any personal belief — so important that a human being should be placed into such hell to maintain it? And as the Iraq War moves further and further into our rear view, we are all forced to wonder what was accomplished besides putting legions of young men in mortal danger with the express goal of doing the same to other young men who just so happen to be from a different corner of the world. All of this under the distant command of some comfy rich guy who will never get close enough to the carnage to understand it beyond the abstract.
Yes, there’s more nuance to the Iraq War than I’m letting on … but maybe there shouldn’t be.
Warfare is less a movie than it is a sensory experience, and if you have the stomach for such things, see it on the biggest screen you can. If you don’t have the stomach for such things, see it on the biggest screen you can. It’s a one of a kind experience, and I’ll never watch it again.
Okay maybe once more so I can show it to my dad. Dads love war movies.
*I should note that Come and See is a war movie that doesn’t glorify war, and perhaps the finest anti-war movie ever made, which is why I used the term “combat movie” up top — a distinction worth making.
Directed by Alex Garland, Ray Mendoza
Written by Alex Garland, Ray Mendoza
Starring D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Charles Melton
Rated R, 95 minutes
