‘Warfare’ pays tribute to those who served in Iraq War with raw and powerful filmmaking

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — No man left behind.

Synopsis

Warfare tells the true story of Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) and his platoon during the Battle of Ramadi in the Iraq War. When their surveillance outpost is ambushed and some of the soldiers are gravely injured, the platoon is forced to wait it out and survive until rescue arrives.

My thoughts

“War is Hell.” That’s the general conclusion that movies about warfare seem to come to when they’re trying to make a point. It makes sense, though. War is Hell, but the only people who have any right to say that are the ones who experienced it themselves. I’m lucky and grateful to have never experienced anything close to that, with watching it through cinematic form being the closest I’ll ever get (not like I really want to).

While films about war serve their purpose in honoring the veterans who fought in them and act as a reminder that we shouldn’t let history repeat itself, they can sometimes do it in a way that comes as exploitative. These movies feature many moments of Hollywood heroism with swelling music and cinematography designed to look grand and epic. Moments like these may fill us up with patriotic good feelings, but the soldiers who were actually there would argue that’s not how it was at all.

A new take on warfare

Similar to the Vietnam War film Platoon, which director Oliver Stone based on his own experience while serving in that war, Warfare is co-written and co-directed by Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza. Mendoza fought in the Battle of Ramadi in 2006, where his platoon was ambushed during a surveillance mission. Those events Mendoza and co-director Alex Garland bring to life here. I would normally use the word dramatize, but there’s nothing dramatized about this picture.

While there are definitely a couple of different movies that Warfare could be compared to on a surface level, when you get into the nitty-gritty details, you realize there’s no other war film like it. Sure, Mendoza is a war vet like Stone, but Stone’s Platoon is similar to many other war films in its presentation. The events you’re seeing in the movie are horrific, but they’re still dramatized to a point with a bit of a Hollywood sheen to them.

The closest comparison I can think of is Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Not only is Dunkirk comparatively one of the loudest movies I’ve ever experienced in an IMAX theater, but it has a similar artistic vibe. As Nolan did in Dunkirk, Mendoza and Garland drop us right into the action without much backstory or time to get to know our characters. Still, like Platoon, Nolan dramatized the events in Dunkirk with an inspirational ending.

A cinematic salute

The main goal for Mendoza when making Warfare was not just to show the realistic nature of being in battle but also to help his fellow soldier, Elliott Miller, remember this event. Miller was gravely wounded in this battle and has no recollection of what happened, something Mendoza and other members of his platoon felt they had a duty to rectify. Together, their personal recollections of the events form the basis for Warfare.

So, this isn’t just Mendoza’s story, but his entire platoon’s story. History will always have different points of view and perspectives, so it made sense for Mendoza and Garland to take the entire platoon’s recollection into account.

The film opens with text on screen saying what you see in this film is all from these people’s memories. Mendoza and Garland got the personal stories of every soldier who was there, and if they could verify that it actually happened, it made it into the film.

Mendoza and Garland met while working on Civil War, where Mendoza served as the military coordinator. After learning of Mendoza’s experiences during the Iraq War, the two set out to make Warfare together.

Mendoza handled the bulk of the directing with the actors and action sequences, with Garland acting more in a supervisory and technical role. With Mendoza’s personal involvement in the war and Garland’s directorial expertise, their combined talents make for a raw and visceral film.

Focus on the mission

Warfare is simply the mission having gone wrong, and there’s one goal for the entire platoon: survival. There’s no time for personal squabbles, grudges, or anything like that to get in the way. We don’t even get a sense of anything like that happening as the events happen in real-time.

This is a tight platoon that trusts each other with their lives, something you can feel in their every action. So many war films focus on an internal war between the soldiers, so it was refreshing to have one where they’re simply working together and having each other’s backs.

Because of this approach in not really developing the characters and just having the audience live through their experience, there is a cold, clinical nature to Warfare. It almost gets to the point of being detached, but the careful direction keeps us all in the moment and in these soldiers’ boots. The fact that these were all real people certainly heightens the emotions, so if you have any basic empathy, it’s not difficult to feel for these characters.

I especially appreciate how the firefights were directed, particularly with the long takes. I love good John Wick-like choreography as much as anybody, but I know it’s nothing like that on the battlefield. There’s nothing “cool” or “awesome” here.

Just pure, simple chaos of soldiers frantically firing into the void in desperate attempts to hit somebody and not get hit themselves. It’s a sobering reminder that there’s nothing glamorous about warfare and that characters like Rambo are purely a work of fiction.

Life on the battlefield

Another notable aspect was the lack of a musical score. Except for a couple of songs at the beginning, there’s absolutely no music to be found here. Mendoza and Garland simply let the events speak for themselves. Honestly, do you really need music in the background in order to feel the dark, negative emotions they want you to feel? All you really need are Joseph Quinn’s horrifying, bloodcurdling screams to make you feel sick to your stomach.

Music would not only detract from the events onscreen, but I don’t think you’d be able to hear it over all the gunfire and explosions anyway! IMAX is definitely the way to see Warfare, but I recommend bringing some earplugs, because this one is LOUD. The gunfire, the explosions, the screaming, and radio chatter; it all becomes too much, like oppressively so. Just like Civil War, though, feeling uncomfortable is precisely the point.

Warfare is borderline deafening, but it’s not just loud for the sake of it. Overall, it’s amazingly mixed, where you can hear all the tiny details amidst the cacophony of war sounds. I couldn’t imagine how the actors felt, as these wartime sounds of gunfire and explosions were played on loudspeakers on set so they could always psychologically be in the moment.

Another Platoon similarity, as well as Black Hawk Down, is the cast is a veritable who’s who of young actors who, a decade from now, people will be watching this and saying, “Wait, he’s in this movie?!” All of them are great, even if it’s a bit difficult to keep track of some of them amidst the chaos. The chemistry they have with each other is strong, and the 3-week boot camp training they endured together evidently paid off.

I’m no military or firearm expert, but it’s apparent pretty early on how confidently these actors carry themselves. They certainly never felt phony. There are some recognizable faces like Will Poulter, but for the most part, it’s a bunch of younger, up-and-coming actors. The lack of big stars definitely added to the immersion, especially as every single soldier in this film was a real person.

Final verdict

To continue to set itself apart from other movies in the war genre, Warfare wraps up with the most emotionally powerful and poignant ending scene since The Zone of Interest. It’s not how you would expect a movie like this to end, but it takes into consideration all the lives the Iraq War had an impact on. Not to mention that this movie goes by in the blink of an eye, so when the ending suddenly hits, it hits right in the soul.

Warfare isn’t just a brilliant film on its own but a perfect companion piece to Garland’s Civil War. Garland’s goal with that film was to thrust Americans into a country that could very well become our own, making us live through the chaos via aggressive action filmmaking. However, as stressful as a movie is, it’s still dramatized and, above all, technically fictional (at least for now, thankfully).

Warfare goes a step beyond Civil War in providing a tense and stressful action film but gives us an insight into one of the darker chapters of world history from somebody who was really there. Only somebody like Ray Mendoza knows how traumatic warfare is, and it’s a bond only specific people like him share. For an entire platoon to come together nearly 20 years later to tell their story, all so one of their own can simply remember, shows the strength of their bond both on and offscreen.