Appropriately, Warfare begins with a deafening assault, as Eric Prydz’s horny 2004 aerobics video for ‘Call On Me’ fills the screen, its sweaty, hormonal hardbodies lunging and lurching. We wonder what, in 2025, we’ve done to deserve this, before the film cuts to a group of grinning, hollering young soldiers watching the video — a tight-knit unit getting their rocks off. These are the young men we’re going to be spending the next hour-and-a-half with; this, of all things, is the calm before the storm.

For a film that, in time, consistently attacks the senses, this opening is fittingly jarring, but it also speaks to the economy of it all. There is no dialogue in the scene: swiftly and wordlessly (other than Steve Winwood’s relentless vocals), it shows us how ingrained this group are with one another, how comfortable, how close. And for its entirety, Warfare is as compact as it gets.