Warfare (2025) ****

 

With “Warfare,” writer/director Alex Garland ("Ex Machina" "Never Let Me Go" "28 Days Later") joins forces with Navy Seal Ray Mendoza to produce possibly the most realistic war movie ever. The film draws on Mendoza's Iraq War experience to depict a small battle involving a Seal platoon.

In 2006, Platoon Alpha One occupies an Iraqi home in order to monitor insurgent activity. The film is presented in real time, so we get to experience the drudgery of hanging out in the heat, looking through a scope while nothing happens, until, suddenly, everything happens. The insurgents attack, and Alpha have to fight for survival.

Made with input from the men who actually fought the battle, “Warfare” crackles with a veracity that is rare in war movies. To some extent, the film sacrifices narrative arc and entertainment value for that veracity. We aren't given these guys' back-stories, and we learn nothing about the Iraqis. Mendoza sticks with what he knows, and we see the battle purely through the eyes of the Seals. In one sense, there are some missed narrative opportunities here to make a bigger film and tell a bigger story. On the other hand, Garland and Mendoza, who co-direct, keep the story tight. They make good use of the downtime to build tension, and the action, when it hits, is as gripping and bewildering as it gets. Instead of the usual 2-3 hour marathon, they deliver a 1.5 hour, taut, hyper-realistic elegy on modern warfare.

4 stars out of 5