A band of brothers-in-arms tries to complete their mission on a day during the Iraq War in this film from Alex Garland and former US Navy Seal Ray Mendoza.
A good memory is both a blessing and a curse; the uncanny talent to retain information for a long space of time goes hand-in-hand with vast knowledge and intelligence, while flashbacks to bad memories can easily activate mental triggers. The harrowing experiences of armed combat overseas often sear themselves into the minds of veterans across all our military branches, and a certain instance stuck for so long within veteran-turned-filmmaker Ray Mendoza when he served in the Iraq War, that with the help of Civil War helmer Alex Garland, he was able to successfully put it on film with Warfare, a chilling but eye-opening story with a fresh perspective to showing the horrors of war in cinema.
Entirely based on the memory of Mendoza himself and his surviving US Navy SEALs, Warfare follows JTAC Ray (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) in his platoon led by Officer-In-Charge Erik (Will Poulter), who leads his squad into a two-story apartment building, which they are quick to make into their own stronghold by forcing the family occupying the unit into another room so sniper Elliott Miller (Cosmo Jarvis) can set up a proper station in which he can surveil a small section of Ramadi for any possible insurgents.
Other soldiers that round out Ray and Erik’s squadron are leading Petty Officer Sam (Joseph Quinn), gunner Tommy (Kit Connor), Ray’s fellow communicator and JTAC John (Finn Bennett), backup sniper Frank (Taylor John Smith) and FSO LT McDonald (Michael Gandolfini). The day is slow at first, but the looming threat of attack is always near in this unpredictable part of Iraq, and once tension escalates into a fever pitch, Ray’s Bravo team finds themselves in a surreal world full of chaos and peril, needing assistance from other units in order to escape.
The greatest war films like The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan do a stellar job of making the audience feel like they’re sitting among their main characters in the heat of battle, and Warfare does this as well, but with neither sweeping grandeur nor celebratory patriotism. What separates Garland and Mendoza’s collaboration from other films in the genre is its earnest transparency in conveying how far soldiers have to go in order to accomplish their mission, going to and from Ray and his mates’ points of view to those of the poor Iraqi residents fearing for their lives, rightly seeing these Americans taking refuge in their home as monstrous captors. But that’s juxtaposed with a sympathetic humanity for everyone involved, as Ray and his crew achieve this in the early goings through no attempted ill toward the family in question.
The air is thick with tension throughout Warfare as well, through its cold tone devoid of a musical score which leaves moviegoers gripped in anticipation for an incoming attack, and brings into focus the naturalistic performances from the main cast. Woon-A-Tai in particular does an excellent job of depicting Ray as a stoic soldier ready and willing to do what’s asked of him, only to go into survival mode with realistic facial progression. But knowing the film is built from the memories of these men adds a raw window into the personality of its director. Most artists pursue their craft in order to bring an idea to life so it finally leaves their mind, but it’s easy to speculate that Mendoza’s foray into filmmaking was an effort to get the images of this day in his life out of his head, with the chilling fact that what happens in war is difficult to silence.
RATING: ★★★★1/2
(out of five stars)