Warfare

“I’m Fucked Up, You Gotta Take Point.” What begins as a seemingly simple, yet tense War thriller soon becomes a gripping, devastating and at times all too real blood soaked, smoke-filled hour and thirty-minute decent into Hell in Alex Garland’s most recent directorial effort “WARFARE” which was co-written and directed by Navy SEAL Veteran Ray Mendoza. I’ve been sitting with this film for over 24 hours simply because I haven’t thought of how I’d even begin to write a review for it. I skipped out on Garland’s “Civil War” from last year, not because I dislike the Man’s films, I genuinely believe Alex Garland to be a phenomenally gifted visionary and one of the best directors of our time, but because I felt he had lost the nuances that made “Annihilation” and “Ex-Machina” so incredible with his third directorial effort “Men” from 2022, which truth be told wasn’t very good. And can be compared to being preached at for two hours. But I decided to forget about that film, and walk into “Warfare” with a mindset of “every director has a flub, and you can’t make great things if you don’t make a few bad things first” and I was rewarded with an excellently crafted and executed film about brotherhood and survival. A real time depiction of the horrors of combat based off the memories of those who lived through it- that honors these soldier’s experiences while brilliantly philosophizing and displaying the impossibility of their sacrifices. Will Poulter gives another stand out performance this year with his portrayal of Erik. Where He gives a subtle, yes, but brutally effective depiction of shell-shock after the initial catastrophic & disorienting blast of the I.E.D. And I’d also like to mention Cosmo Jarvis who played Elliott, Kit Connor who played Tommy, and Joseph Quinn who played Sam, all of whom give gut-wrenchingly convincing, and compelling performances right next to everyone else in the cast respectively, Making you really feel like you’re watching a platoon of soldiers going through this hell. Especially Jarvis and Connor. I didn’t think I’d be saying this, but like William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” one of this Film’s strongest attributes is its lack of music. It’s lack of a score entirely. Never relieving the tension with a backing track for a scene, sometimes dropping all sound in a scene entirely. Rather scoring itself with screaming and the terrifying sound of rattling assault rifles. I felt that even though you primarily stay with the sole team of SEALs for the whole runtime, “Warfare” was incredibly effective with showing both sides of the conflict, with a few final shots, and recurring moments in the film, featuring an Iraqi family, and the Iraqi soldiers. And it does this by just simply stating; no one wanted to be there. No one wanted that war. And no one came back from any of it the same they went in. No one made it out unbroken and no-one won. Garland & Mendoza’s “WARFARE” is a bleak, emotionally crippling, but extremely powerful film that displays its most important messages in its lack of resolution and carries an immensely important and brilliantly conveyed Anti-War sentiment that needs to be spoken and spread. And differentiates itself from other films in the genre by showing war violence for the sad, brutal, cruel mess it truly is instead of glorifying it. This film is not for everybody, and there are moments that are truly horrific. But I’d be in the wrong if I said they didn’t need to be. If you can stomach it, it’s worth a watch.