Warfare is a blunt depiction of one platoon’s day

Friday, 18 April 2025

Warfare is a blunt depiction of one platoon's day

Warfare (R16, 96 mins) Directed by Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland ****

Here's something I just thought of but which I swear is true: there is no such thing as an anti-war, war movie*. You can make a film that shows the sheer futility and boredom of war - and maybe a handful of festival-goers, trailing clouds of sanctimony, will even go and see it.

But the moment you put a gun or a cannon on screen, all war films become pro-war, no matter what the film-makers might try to tell you, or even believe.

From All Quiet on the Western Front to Lone Survivor and Saving Private Ryan, and all the way back to Birth of a Nation and Abel Gance's Napoleon if you insist, there has never been a depiction of soldiers in combat that was so grim or so gruelling that it couldn't cause a queue at the army recruitment office on Monday morning.

Will Poulter in Warfare, a depiction of one day in November 2006, when co-director Ray Mendoza and his platoon were ambushed in the Iraqi city of Ramada.

I mention all this because I know the front lines of social media are ablaze with people lobbing tweets and memes at each other about whether Warfare - which is in cinemas this week - glorifies war or not. And my answer to that would be nah, it just shows war. But that some people are always going to find that exciting and attractive.

Warfare is co-directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland. Garland rose to fame as a novelist and screenwriter, with The Beach, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and the ridiculously good 2012 Dredd all on his CV. He got his first credit as a director with Ex Machina, and has since made the under-appreciated sci-fi horror Annihilation, the hilariously polarising Men and last year's very good and grim Civil War.

Warfare unfolds in very nearly real time, the fighting - when it arrives - is bluntly depicted and unadorned. And the actors playing the soldiers and the civilian family who are caught in the crossfire, are all completely believable.

Mendoza and Garland met while Mendoza was working as a military adviser on Annihilation, but he had served 16 years as a Navy Seal and instructor before his peace-time work in the movies.

Mendoza and Garland's stated aim was to make Warfare an accurate depiction of one day in November 2006, when Mendoza and his platoon were pinned down and ambushed in the Iraqi city of Ramada.

Kit Connor in Warfare. The film also stars D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Michael Gandolfini and Joseph Quinn.

Warfare unfolds in very nearly real time, the fighting - when it arrives - is bluntly depicted and unadorned. And the actors playing the soldiers and the civilian family who are caught in the crossfire, are all completely believable.

D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs) is Mendoza, and I guess that makes him the nominal lead of the film, but everyone here gets a jaw-dropping moment or two. Will Poulter (Midsommar) is terrific as a squad leader trying to shake off concussion and shock, and Cosmo Jarvis, Michael Gandolfini, Kit Connor and Joseph Quinn are equally good around him.

The cinematography by David J Thompson is a masterclass in capturing movement at close quarters, while still clearly showing an audience what is happening and to whom. And although there is no music in Warfare, other than a few songs heard on a radio, the sound design is astonishing - and it needs to be appreciated in a cinema.

Maybe the fairest thing I can say about Warfare is that some of you are going to find it pointless and ugly, and others will say it is visceral and exciting. Which I think means that Garland and Mendoza have achieved what they set out to do.

* I Googled this after I wrote it, and found out that Francois Truffaut once said the exact same thing. So I figure I'm in good company.

Warfare is in cinemas now.