Warfare

I despise films that glorify war. The swelling strings, the slow-motion salutes, the valour-for-the-sake-of-it nonsense - it's tired and tone-deaf. That's why 'Warfare', the latest and arguably best A24 film I've seen in a long while, floored me. This isn't some patriotic puff piece. It's raw, visceral, and deeply uncomfortable in all the right ways.

Co-directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza (a former Navy SEAL whose real-life experience forms the backbone of the story), 'Warfare' drops you headfirst into the chaos of a mission gone sideways in 2006 Ramadi (Iraq). There's no time for character backstories or emotional flashbacks. You're in the dirt with these men, hearing the crack of gunfire, the ragged breathing, the frantic comms - every heartbeat of the film is felt in your chest. Real war, as this film so powerfully reminds us, isn't medals and glory. It's blood, guts, and a harrowing sense of hopelessness.

The cast - most notably D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Cosmo Jarvis, and Will Poulter - bring a haunting realism to their roles. You don't watch them; you endure alongside them. And that's what elevates 'Warfare' into something more than cinema. It's an experience. A brutal, brilliantly made, and emotionally devastating experience.

Any loss of life in war is a failure - of diplomacy, of leadership, of humanity. This film doesn't flinch from that truth. It holds your gaze and says: look at what we do to each other.

A masterpiece. Uncompromising and unforgettable. If you can, see it in a theatre. The sound design alone is worth the ticket - each echoing explosion and muffled breath immerses you deeper into the dread-soaked trenches of reality. 'Warfare' doesn't just show war. It makes you feel every awful second of it.

Warfare isn't a war film. It's war.

Garland and Mendoza strip the genre of everything recognizable: no character arcs, no flashbacks, no patriotic overtures or emotional beats. There are no names to remember. No home to long for. No cinematic scaffolding to hold onto. What's left is the brutal machinery of combat - dry, immediate, procedural.

This is not the psychological descent of Apocalypse Now, nor the trembling humanism of Saving Private Ryan. It's more like being waterboarded with dust, sound, and confusion.

The camera is unflinching - tight, reactive, often handheld but never "shaky-cam" chaos. It moves with the soldiers, but never sentimentalizes them. There's no slow-mo. No meditative framing. Just bodies moving through smoke, clearing rooms, capturing buildings. The lens doesn't find beauty in destruction - it avoids it entirely. The few wide shots we get are just to show how small they are. How futile it all looks from a distance. The sound design is relentless: radios crackling over one another, gunfire echoing through narrow alleyways. There is almost no score, and when music does appear (Low's Dancing and Blood) it's droning, ghostly, anti-heroic. It haunts rather than elevates. The production design is chillingly effective. Everything feels lived-in and long-dead at the same time. You can smell the ash, feel the heat radiating off the concrete. The environments aren't stylized, they're decayed, abandoned, half-real. It feels like the war has already happened, and this is just the residue.

One of the final moments, set to the droning nightmare of Low's Dancing and Blood, shows a blurry portrait of an Iraqi family seconds before their home is destroyed. Not for shock. Not for plot. But because that is war-it happens, and then it's gone, and the image remains, smeared and indistinct.

Civil War framed the ethics of capturing violence. Warfare removes the frame entirely. There is no image here to interpret - just presence. Just event.

It's also one of the most immersive war films I've ever seen, precisely because it refuses to explain itself. The film doesn't care if you're lost. It wants you to be. Questions pile up. None are answered. Context is treated like luxury, one the characters (and audience) don't get.

By the final sequence, you feel exhausted - not thrilled, not moved - just emptied out. And then the film has the audacity to end on one word:

"Why?"

But it doesn't ask it to provoke. It asks it like a ghost would. Like a memory does. It's not a question. It's an echo.

Warfare is not a film you watch. It's something you survive.

9/10.

P. S Having experienced Warfare in Dolby Atmos, I must emphasize how sonically overwhelming the film's opening sequence is - a moment of almost euphoric surrealism, as the soldiers lose themselves in the pulsating rhythm of Call on Me, the bass resonating so powerfully it felt like the theater roof was coming down. It's a scene of unexpected levity and collective joy, rendered with hypnotic energy and tonal audacity. Precisely this striking contrast - between the almost absurd vitality of the prologue and the film's emotionally pulverizing, desolate conclusion - marks one of the boldest and most jarring juxtapositions in recent cinema.

Super slow and quiet at the start then an eruption of chaos and gunfire without any kind of build up - typical Alex Garland films. Sound design and extra loud gunfire made it a very immersive experience. Some criticism of the film is that there was no story plot or character arcs but when the film ends, it's apparent that the Iraqis and the American soldiers are left with the trauma when everything suddenly stops and the violence has ended. Maybe gone are the days of entertainment war films and 'Warfare' makes people think about the nitty gritty details and what soldiers and civilians are left to deal with.

Went into this expecting a military movie like those that get rolled out on Netflix periodically, however this is a huge step above. The fact it's a true story too also adds so much to the events shown. The filmmakers go out to put you in the middle of the action. It's a very intense movie that does an amazing job of making you feel the tension in the situation. Performances keep you locked in but the real star of the show is the sound. From the gunfire to explosions you feel every hit. The 'Show of force' they use NEEDS to be heard to be believed. I came out of the movie shaken tbh but really entertained and the time flew by.

True "edge of your seat." Think of the tension of the first 15 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan," but over an hour and a half. No spoilers, but I love the fact that the movie immediately drops you into the situation. We don't need to know why the soldiers are there, or what their objective/mission is, because that's irrelevant when the bullets start to fly. These are just soldiers going on a mission. Finally, as a patriotic American, I feel that before Congress & the President deploy any of our U. S. Service people into harms way, they and the CEOs of Raytheon, Blackrock, Vanguard, and Halliburton should be forced to watch this movie, as well as the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, before anyone is deployed. Also, the law should be passed that all of their children should be the first deployed, call it the "No Fortunate Son" law. I think we would have less wars if that happened.