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Warfare Review: An immersive battle flick like no other
Review: Directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s Warfare is an immersive, realistic descent into the chaos of war The post Warfare Review: An immersive battle flick like no other appeared first on JoBlo.
PLOT: A team of Navy SEALS are pinned down in a two-story house in the middle of insurgent territory during the Battle of Ramadi.
REVIEW: Francois Truffaut once famously stated that there was no such thing as an anti-war film. His reasoning for this was that, by the way the medium works, there’s always something dazzling about the way such a film is mounted that can’t help but glamorize a terrifying situation. Granted, I’m not the only critic who pulled out this old chestnut for my Warfare review but speak to any vet, and they’ll tell you that Hollywood gets it wrong more often than it gets it right. I vividly remember our former EIC here at JoBlo, Paul Shirey, a combat vet, telling me that he thought The Hurt Locker was utterly preposterous. Yet, it can’t be denied that Alex Garland and co-director Ray Mendoza have tried to make Warfare truly different from the war film canon by making it as immersive as possible. It’s the lone war film that doesn’t dive into the backstories of its soldiers, knowing that you’ll empathize with them anyway based solely on the impossible situation they find themselves in the middle of. I suppose one could call this the anti-Hurt Locker.
Warfare follows a group of Navy SEALS who find themselves pinned down by insurgents in a two-story home. With attackers coming from all corners, the movie occurs in real time as the unit tries to stay alive long enough to get evacuated. Mendoza, who worked with Garland on Civil War, actually fought in this battle, with him played in the film by Reservation Dogs breakout D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai. As such, the movie tries to evoke the white-knuckle terror of the situation for not only the soldiers but also the Iraqi civilians who live in the home which has been commandeered by the soldiers.
Mendoza and Garland’s film isn’t here to make any grand statement about the Iraq War, but they do want you to think about the toll it takes on all involved. The soldiers are introduced in a rare moment of levity watching the video for Eric Prydz’s “Call on Me,” but very soon, it’s clear that a massive opposing force is heading toward the guys. Warfare tries to deconstruct all the war movie tropes, particularly the tiresome one where badly wounded soldiers are always portrayed as stoic – as if that would even be possible. Joseph Quinn, of Stranger Things, wails and screams in terror and agony for much of the running time in what must have been a gruelling performance.
The film is cast with a who’s who of the brightest young twenty-something actors, but despite the big names involved, the movie is a true ensemble. There’s no real lead, and the movie allows you to observe them as they try to stay alive. No one falls pretty to any cliches, and you empathize with all of them, from Quinn’s gravely wounded petty officer to Will Poulter as the team’s CO, whose wounds are less physically apparent but just as gruelling. There’s not a weak link among the cast, with Cosmo Jarvis particularly good as the team’s sniper, while Charles Melton makes a big impression as he enters late in the game to try and save his friends from the impossible situation they’ve found themselves in.
Notably, Garland and Mendoza’s film doesn’t have a musical score, as they eschew almost all the trappings of a typical Hollywood-style war film. One thing is for certain, they want you to respect the sacrifices of the men who served without getting maudlin or heavy-handed. As such, it’s the A24 version of a movie like Black Hawk Down, and it should find an appreciative audience, even if its effort to cut down on the rah-rah aspects of a war film might limit its appeal to the art house. That’s too bad, as it’s a movie that cries out to be seen on a big screen, although veterans, understandably, might feel it hits a little too close to home.
On that note, if any veterans have seen the film and want to share their thoughts, please chime in via the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.
The post Warfare Review: An immersive battle flick like no other appeared first on JoBlo.
