“Warfare” is nothing short of brutal. Drawing on co-director Ray Mendoza’s experience in the Iraq War, Mendoza and co-director Alex Garland ensure “Warfare” closely reflects the memories of the Navy SEALs who inspired the story. The result is a film that, while haunting, begs for a deeper examination of the subject at hand.
The premise of “Warfare” is quite simple — the narrative follows a team of Navy SEALs who conduct an operation in Ramadi, Iraq. The operation is based on one Mendoza was actually a part of in November 2006 and the film was constructed from both Mendoza’s memory of the event and the memories of his fellow soldiers. The film’s script effectively stitches these varied perspectives together to create a cohesive narrative thread that, in its best moments, is unbearably intense.
Through various interviews, both Garland and Mendoza said they wanted to stay as true as they could to the brutal reality of warfare while making the film. The film leaves dramatics at the door, allowing an eerie calm to settle in as the audience’s quiet companion. The first half of “Warfare” is quite literally spent watching these soldiers lie in wait — a sniper peers through his scope, quietly reporting any activity, while two others huddle over a monitor as their commanding officer watches nearby. It’s all strangely mundane and serves to ground the film in reality before the shock of the film’s second half.
Indeed, against the first half’s eerie calm, the latter half of the film erupts into a horrid storm driven by phenomenal sound design. The hails of gunfire land with heavy force, practically punching through the soundsystem. In one particularly effective moment, the detonation of an improvised explosive device cuts all sound, replacing it with a high pitched ringing that reflects the shocked, disorientated state of the soldiers. Amid the chaos, Ray (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) drags the injured Sam (Joseph Quinn) back into the house they have set up camp. At first, Sam’s screams are silent, muted by ringing, but immediately upon their return into the home, the silence is shattered by the raw and excruciating sounds of Sam’s cries. What is already a harrowing sequence becomes truly haunting.
Elevating this intense presentation is a phenomenal ensemble of actors, each delivering a powerful performance. The cast is full of familiar names such as Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Charles Melton, Woon-A-Tai, Quinn, Kit Connor and more — all current rising stars and quite talented actors. Their individual performances propel the film forward as much as the cast’s clear chemistry does. Their camaraderie serves as the final piece that ties the film together.
However, “Warfare” is not completely free from the failure that plagues other war films. It is clear that a major reason Garland and Mendoza emphasized the film’s realism is the objectivity such realism necessitates. The horrifying pain in Quinn’s wretched screams, the relentless beating of gunfire, the horrifying wounds and the dead bodies all serve to assert the hard truth that war only breeds an unspeakable amount of violence. Yet “Warfare” is still only showing half of the full picture.
One of the film’s most interesting decisions is the small insight it gives into the perspectives of the Iraqi family whose home is invaded by these soldiers for the operation. We see the family huddled together in a room, having been forced awake in the middle of the night, terrified and desperately confused. The camera captures small details of their home such as the pair of glass dolphins resting on a table and a family portrait hanging on one of the walls — a comforting normality interrupted against their will. The film gives a small voice to the family who has fallen victim to the destruction caused by the soldiers’ arrival. Even the film’s final image is the bloodstained, ruined mess of a home the soldiers left behind.
The pitfall of many such war films is their failure to recognize the experiences of innocent civilians whose homes and livelihoods are unjustly destroyed and ruined. “Warfare” attempts to give a voice to one of the many Iraqi families who have been displaced due to the Iraq war but fails to fully develop this idea, leaving it a half-baked afterthought rather than a focused effort.
As a tribute to the experiences of Ray Mendoza and his fellow former Navy SEALs, “Warfare” is effective in laying bare the brutal truth of their experiences, but its attempt to expand the film’s perspective to fully encompass all sides of the conflict unfortunately falls short. Ultimately, “Warfare” is an interesting film; however, it is still not immune to the common failures that afflict the many war films that have come before.
