User reviews

I applaud any attempt by Hollywood to break away from the endless cycle of comic book movies and franchise reboots. Alex Garland has done that successfully before-Ex Machina and Civil War were both bold and thought-provoking. But Warfare falls flat. In striving for an ultra-realistic portrayal of modern combat, it forgets to tell an engaging story. Where Civil War had a message that built tension and urgency, Warfare simply meanders. There's no emotional anchor, no narrative drive. If you want to understand warfare, go and watch a good Ken Burns documentary. It will do a better job-and probably contain more suspense.

Need to start by saying "been there, done that". Which may have spoilt it a little for me since I found myself constantly question the scenario and actions taken. But I couldn't help feel that this film made the soldiers look and act like a bunch of amateurs.

Let's just assume that 'Contact Drills' are key to everything. The IA drill, the comms and the first aid. All key components. So when I watched this I felt like I was watching The National Guard. Clueless. Slow. Tactically incompetent and leaderless.

The cinematography was nice. The radio traffic realistic. The constant overhead imagery highly unlikely. The lack of air support realistic. The dust and dirt as I remembered. But where were the flies? The thousand of annoying b@stard flies that were everywhere! Nope, none go be seen in this film.

The dialogue was average. Forgettable. Unintelligent. The actors all had a look. The acting was okay. But all blended into one once contact was made.

The initial request for casevac was confusing. Walking wounded. Wasting time with an immediate casevac more suited to a severe life threatening injury. What was that about? Did I miss something? Did I miss the first aid and triage? It just didn't make sense. Just shut up and soldier on!

Then the major contact. Lots of bullets flying. With all combatants apparently trained by Stormtroopers. Bulkets flying everywhere. Nobody hit. How!? And don't get me started on the armoured vehicles. Only firing their main weapons near the end. Were rounds being rationed? Just didn't make sense. They offered zero protection until the end. Uh!?

Yeah it was gritty, bloody and loud. But that's all it was. A lot of hype around soldiers trapped in a house, surrounded by the enemy. An enemy that was a little shy after that first grenade. Leaving the rest of the film being about very little.

The US invaded a Country (Russia), with the locals resisting (Ukraine). The brackets reflecting the sad comparisons. Some got injured. Film about getting them to safety. That's all. Nothing about the family who had their home / lives destroyed. No character development. No story arc. Just a dumb shoot em up that made the soldiers look like recruits in basic training.

This film rests heavily on hype. It's a guardroom film. Not a classic.

Created on the basis of memories of a war veteran, Warfare is a crafty movie that is raw and intense while not being truly aware of what's next after the traumatic experience.

Yes, the direction by Alex Garland is commendable. The movie feels a mix of documentary and bodycam footage, while the cast were comfortable in their respective roles.

While the production and cinematography was very good, the real problem is that there's no context to the story or any empathic connection shown between the characters whatsoever. Warfare delivered the horrors of war but failed to deliver the reason or the backstory of the war and characters, both. This is not a bad movie at all, but there are much better war films that I have watched.

3 stars for "Warfare".

Alex Garland's current interest seems to be in making movies about inherently political things while insisting his work isn't political. His latest effort, co-directed with Iraq veteran Ray Mendoza, is all about the experience of war - or, rather, the American experience of war. Focused solely on depicting a real-time recreation of a real-life operation, 'Warfare (2025)' omits all context and characterisation in favour of pure jargon-spewing realism and adrenaline-fuelled chaos. Supposedly based "only on memories" (as all films based on true stories essentially are), any notions that the movie might play with perspective or comment on the fluid nature of so-called truth (which is, as history tells us, written almost exclusively by the victors) are soon dispelled when it becomes clear Garland and Mendoza are interested in nothing other than the moment-to-moment reality of armed combat. With a stacked cast given almost nothing to work with, the picture plays out pretty much like a video-game insofar as none of its characters are really anything more than representations of the actions they undertake. They're vague stand-ins for the people they're based on (the blurred faces of whom precede the credits, contrasted with their actor counterparts), but only for the specific period of time over which the feature is set; they have no real arcs, no specific personalities, nothing that truly sets them apart from one another. Of course, this is purposeful, as they're meant to portray the specifically curated homogeny of soldiers that keeps each person a cog in a wider machine, but that doesn't mean it's a particularly wise choice. It isn't inherently a bad one, I suppose, but eschewing the typical techniques used to craft interesting characters that you care about has the easy-to-predict side effect of not crafting interesting characters that you care about. You only relate to the people on screen on the most basic of levels, empathising with them purely because you don't want to see anybody get hurt (if you're normal). It makes the quieter portions of the picture less engaging than they should be, and even dampens the effect of the louder segments because we're never given a specific reason to slide to the edge of our seats. It's lucky, then, that the filmmaking is on point. Even though it isn't particularly stylish (furthering the generally uninteresting air that surrounds the overall experience), it is undeniably solid. With careful sound design, kinetic camerawork, an impressive eye for detail, and a firm grasp on set-piece creation, the affair immerses you in its Middle-Eastern setting and feels like a particularly honest representation of armed combat. Its brutality is often upsetting, placing focus on pain and fear and confusion, and its escalation feels natural, with enemy fire erupting out of nowhere and the promise of extraction being broken by flesh-shredding IEDs. It's cohesive, often compelling and confidently crafted. However, it isn't especially affecting and its first third is notably slow, with its build in tension being hampered somewhat by its surface-level characterisations. It all feels rather by the numbers, too, as it sacrifices flair for sheer realism in an exchange that doesn't always pay off as much as you'd hope. Still, it's well-made and relatively entertaining. It's something worth experiencing on the big screen if you intend to experience it at all.

It's worth mentioning that, regardless of the vague allusions its directors have made to the contrary, this isn't an anti-war film. It isn't pro-war, per se, but it simply doesn't do enough to decry not just the Iraq war, but war in general. Yes, it features the senseless brutality of armed combat, and yes it depicts its US forces taking an innocent Iraqi family hostage and forcing their Iraqi translators to go out into danger ahead of them, but it doesn't specifically condemn any of it and its lack of wider context prevents it from even coming close to doing so. How can something be opposed to war if it never addresses the reasons for it, never looks at it through a wide enough lens to capture its nuances and tragedies? The piece isn't equipped to comment on the injustice of the real conflict it depicts because it focuses only on a small part of it, a tiny portion of a wider machine. At most, it's opposed to the violence war necessitates, but even then it's purely depicted as part of the jobs of the soldiers it involves and is only viewed through an American lens. There's little thought paid to the other perspective, little time dedicated to the ethics of US forces even being in the region. When the environment is ripped to shreds and Iraqi civilians emerge traumatised from the rubble, it isn't meant to invoke pity or inspire empathy. The Iraqi characters, both armed and unarmed, are even less rounded than the American ones. Simply showing the realities of an unnamed operation doesn't inherently decry its existence, and the concept that it comes across as fruitless precisely because we lack detail of it doesn't hold much weight. It's clear that Garland and Mendoza are more concerned with the moment-to-moment experience of conflict, which would be fine if their piece didn't focus on a very real and very controversial situation. When you're mostly concerned with survival, you naturally won't be concerned with ethics, but the movie is retroactively looking at a situation it can afford to be critical of if it chooses to be. It isn't interested in doing that, so how can it claim to be anti-war? Although it's easy go mistake something that simply showcases the horrors of battle as being anti-war, it's actually only anti-war if you're anti-war; if you're pro-war, the reality that people get hurt and die during it (which is something inherent to the concept that surely everyone understands and even expects, regardless of how they feel about it) isn't enough to turn you away from it. War movies, even supposedly anti-war movies, often aren't actually anti-war and that isn't a new or uncommon issue. The fact that this flick falls victim to the same problem doesn't strip it of all its value. After all, it's still a compelling portrayal of combat that feels real and raw and is undeniably well-made. It's just that we don't really need more not-really-anti-war war movies. Plus, pictures that opt to utilise war solely as a way of creating spectacle and excitement should be critically examined, as it's arguably irresponsible to purposefully avoid the context surrounding its concept in order to make something that's not fun fun, especially when it's based on a real situation that claimed thousands of lives. The fact that it strives for realism means it deserves more scrutiny, as it isn't presented as a piece of pulp entertainment that uses the concept of war rather than the specifics of it.

Ultimately, although it isn't clear exactly why it was made, this is a confident, cohesive and often compelling film that works well as an in-the-moment experience, but certainly has its flaws and deserves a fair amount of scrutiny. It doesn't work as well as it could because it doesn't do the work to make you truly care, although that's arguably a symptom of its purpose (or, I suppose, unique selling point). It's grounded and tactile and brutal, and it's technically pretty great. Conceptually, though, it's somewhat lacking, especially when it comes to the ethics of what it's portraying (or not portraying). It isn't an easy one to judge, to be honest. It has its positives and its negatives. It's a solid enough effort overall.

Set during November 2006 in Ramadi, Iraq, a team of US Navy Seals is tasked with providing cover for Marines from a captured civilian home as the boredom and tedium of surveillance gives way to explosive terror that leads to fight for survival.

Warfare is the latest film from Alex Garland which reteams him with Military Veteran and Advisor Ray Mendoza who worked with Garland on the previous year's Civil War. Garland worked in tandem with Mendoza (with Garland stating he was mainly there in a supporting capacity to Mendoza). Based on the Mendoza's first hand experiences during a 2006 battle in Ramadi, Iraq, the film is told in real time and based entirely on the memories of the soldiers who were there during the event. In terms of filmmaking and craft Warfare certainly is admirable on a technical level, but substantively there's little more here than the old History Channel docuseries Shootout.

If there's anything to be said about Warfare, it's certainly in placing you in a "boots on the ground" experience in terms of what the modern warfare experience is. If you ask former veterans of any war, much of the time they will emphasize the nature of the experience is strings of continuous tedium occasionally broken up by chaotic terror. During the opening 20 minutes there's very little that actually happens as the unit we follow takes a sniper position in a civilian home and looks over a marketplace where very little actually transpires and they can't talk or do anything to kill time because they need to stay alert to stay alive. Once the "action" actually does start, Warfare delivers on the ugly chaos that defines warfare. The transition from quiet tedium to bombastic terror happens on a dime and it certainly is well captured in its brutality and ugliness.

In terms of technical craft Warfare is second to none, but during the films brisk roughly 90 minute runtime I felt myself become more indifferent to what was happening with not much reason to care. As a way of subverting the expectations of other war films, Warfare foregoes many of the scenes used to build character such as the soldiers bonding over "what's back home" or "why they enlisted" and while those elements are common tropes of the genre dating back to the earliest war films of cinema they are necessary in order to make sure the audience has a reason to care. With Warfare it's very much a case of "throwing the audience in the deep-end" because outside of text establishing the Navy SEALs mission of "providing support to the Marines" there's no real sense of purpose here to this story nore are there any characters as there's no real scenes of fleshing out the characters to the point I couldn't really identify anyone by name. It could be argued that the purposelessness is part of the point particularly with the ending and how the Iraqi insurgents are rarely ever seen with no possible road to victory serving as a commentary on the pointlessness of war, but the movie takes such a detatched view of events that it feels like (if you'll pardon the cliché) "sound and fury signifying nothing".

Warfare isn't without technical merit, but that's really all it has going for it. You probably get more from an average episode of the History Channel show Shootout because at least there the talking head interviews from people who were there provide some character and investment, whereas here, it's more violent and polished than what you get on TV but if you're point is "War is hell and pointless" (which I've heard some argue isn't necessarily the point) that doesn't really justify why we're told what's barely a story.

Warfare is a historical retelling of a battle that the director experienced while on duty. Other than a wacky intro, this movie is tense rollercoaster of these soldiers dealing with Iraq insurgents as they attempt to escape. The director puts you in the middle of this mission and you never leave. The cast is pretty solid with Will Poulter and Joseph Quinn as the biggest names. You don't get much of a backstory on any of the soldiers but the cast mostly does a good job differentiating themselves enough. If you thought about joining the army, this movie does a great job testing if you can really handle it. Overall, I thought the movie was tense but I won't lie I got bored a lot. The good and bad thing about it being an accurate reenactment is there are no skips or cuts really so you feel every second quiet or loud. With the quiet moments which are a lot, I got a mixture of being tense of if something will happen and bored wanting something to happen. This movie is really for the hardcore army vets or fans.

Starting with "This film uses only their memories" when referring to American soldiers doesn't really inspire much confidence in the story about to be told.

Great sounds, action and visuals. Pretty good acting as well. Not very good cgi and vfx tbh.

It's just hard to fully enjoy a movie like this.

Sure it doesn't fully "glorify" American war actions, but it definitely doesn't vilify (which should be the goal of any movie depicting this "war") it either.

A24 working on this seemed pretty weird to me initially, and still does tbf.

Had younger, "American Sniper" fanatic, me seen this, it would probably be an amazing experience, as it's pretty much a war game in film format.

But anybody that has thought about the events theses movies try to depict, should find it hard to come out with a super positive review, no matter how good it might technically be.

A24 Studios, known for their bold and boundary-pushing storytelling, has released one of its most visceral and uncompromising films to date with Warfare (2025). Written and directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, this war drama is based on Mendoza's real-life experiences as a U. S. Navy SEAL during the Iraq War. Specifically, it recounts a harrowing encounter on November 19, 2006, following the Battle of Ramadi, in unflinching real-time detail.

What sets Warfare apart from other war films is its commitment to authenticity. The dialogue, pacing, and events are all drawn directly from testimonies of Mendoza's own platoon. This isn't a dramatization of war-it's a reconstruction. There's no Hollywood polish here, and the film doesn't try to romanticize combat. Instead, it immerses you in the claustrophobic intensity of a single building where everything takes place, making the experience both powerful and at times, overwhelming.

And that's the catch. While the movie's realism is unmatched-truly the most accurate portrayal of war I've ever seen-it's also extremely bloody, loud, and emotionally draining. Some sequences are so intense they're almost nauseating, especially paired with the film's brutally effective sound design. The constant barrage of gunfire, shouted commands, and chaotic movement left me with a genuine migraine when I walked out of the theater. It's not for the faint of heart, and honestly, some scenes were difficult to sit through.

The emotional core of the film is dedicated to platoon member Elliott Miller (Jarvis), who suffered life-altering injuries in the real event. The movie handles his story with reverence and gravity, even including real footage of Miller and behind-the-scenes moments with the actors and soldiers. These glimpses into the real-life people behind the story anchor the film in humanity, offering a poignant reminder of the cost of war.

Still, Warfare isn't perfect. My biggest gripe is that, despite the emotional weight and realism, not much changes or develops over the course of the film. Its single-location setup adds to the realism, sure-but dramatically, it can feel stagnant. It's clear the filmmakers were more focused on honoring truth than crafting a traditional narrative arc, and while I respect that, it does make the film feel a little too contained and, at times, chaotic in its execution.

Overall, Warfare is a powerful, disturbing, and deeply personal film that prioritizes truth over entertainment. It may not be an easy watch-and frankly, it shouldn't be-but the heart behind it is undeniable.

I had no idea of the films existance until two hours ago, having never seen a trailer or read a review.

Warfare is based on real events experienced by a U. S. Navy Seal platoon during the Iraq War. The film does not attempt to do anything more than show what took place. There is no character development, no musical score. I felt no connection to the characters on screen. The acting was fine and they did the best with what they were given. What we see on screen is not new or unique when it comes to depicting warfare.

I cannot figure out the purpose behind why Ray Mendoza decided to make this. Maybe to show the true horror of war (in which case many films do a far better job of communicating this message). Or perhaps he used this as a form of therapy to voice the harrowing experiences he had back in 2006 as a young Navy Seal. I am genuinely curious.

If you need to kill an hour and a half, then give this a go.

Coming from Alex Garland, the film gives of the impression it has something profound to say about war. It does not really. It is a pretty standard military action film, not bad, but not outstanding either.

Films like Black Hawk Down or Hurt Locker have already covered the "realistic" modern war movie ground quite well. If you enjoyed those films, you will certainly enjoy this one as well. It does very little new things however.

If you want something more challenging I'd recommend Garland's Civil War instead. It has some weaknesses, too, but is generally more unique and thought-provoking and stayed with me for longer.

There is no shortage of grim and realistic war films, but what sets Warfare apart from most of these works is a simple but important point. The duration of the film is about 90 minutes, and almost all of its events take place in real time, which means that as time passes for the audience, the story progresses in the same proportion. This choice is more than a cinematic ploy to make the film look different. Using time and memory in this way creates unprecedented realism and makes every moment an unexpected turning point.

This realistic representation of the timeline of events is both a strength of the film and a weakness for some. On the one hand, there are few war films that deal with the moment of events with such precision. But on the other hand, it doesn't offer much content in terms of narrative or conceptual messages. Similar to Civil War, the focus of the film is not on the politics behind the scenes of the war, but on the realistic representation of a scene from the battlefield.

Not a lot to this movie. Special affects? Doesn't explain the mission very well, target? Why the house with family, who leaked location....basically a lot of bad choices displayed. How did they not see IED planted? Not well scripted. A little difficult to follow. Other groups of soldiers , were they there on separate mission, rescue mission? It didn't flow. There was a mysterious base with a voice that never materialized. The acting was not matching up with the roles of soldiers in a developing event. Facial expressions , behaviors were strange. The story could have been developed further with more detail.

I have been to Iraq and drove the streets of baghdad. Luckily I didn't experience any combat, i came back unscathed. That said this movie give you that feeling of being there. I was taken back to Iraq and how miserable it was there. The opening scene gives you a peak into the mindset and culture of being in the military. How a provocative music video, boosts morale.

If your looking for a movie with a plot, with a beginning, middle and end, this isn't it. It comes off as a documentary and won't be for everyone. I tried watching 'The covenant with Jake Gyllenhal and had to turn it off, it was not authentic. Warfare is 100% authentic.

Last year, Alex Garland chose to direct a film about a civil war in the contemporary United States, literally title it "Civil War" and THEN claim it was meant to be largely apolitical. Worse, he actually lived up to that conceit - at least, from a POV of a certain kind of "centrism" which considers it perfectly acceptable to depict disorganized racist murderers and "Maoist" suicide bombers, but balks at actually connecting an executive's power-grabbing with a specific political platform and ideology.

Many probably wondered where he could possibly go from there, but in hindsight the answer was obvious. OF COURSE the next logical move from there was to direct One Day in the Life of an Occupier, an in media res depiction of a single event in Iraq in 2006 which bothers to ask no questions whatsoever, and "lets us form our own conclusions." After all, the squad we follow already know each other well and don't feel the need to tell anything about themselves to the camera - or indeed, to explain anything they do. We are simply told at the start the soldiers were given an order to cover up another squad who were heading out on another mission to do...something. We don't need to know what was the point of any of it. The soldiers just know that it needs to be done - so they break into a local's house, smash up the wall with a sledgehammer and force the family to huddle in a single room at gunpoint. The order will justify it. Probably.

For around half the film, almost nothing happens - but That's How It Must Have Been back then, so this is clearly high art. In the other half, some...locals? (the soldiers probably can't tell any of "those Muslims" and their motives apart, so we obviously don't need to know that either) grab loudspeakers and call for a jihad to kill the infidel Americans we happen to be observing ("That sucks") and then we finally get what we came here for - which is apparently dust, gore and lots and lots of screaming wounded. Things still end relatively well from the perspective we are given, though, because, in the spirit of Hilaire Belloc ("Whatever happens we have got, the Maxim gun and they have not") one side has Bradleys and F...15s? (I can hardly tell those apart from the few seconds of "shows of force" we get) and the other has no ATGMs or MANPADs (let alone drones, because this is still 2006.) Roll credits.

I am aware of "combat is boredom punctuated by extreme danger" maxim, of course, but I challenge the idea that simply doing a good job of replicating this experience is automatically praiseworthy in the absence of any other considerations. This is a film which does not even bother to depict characters with distinctions beyond their squad roles or minor tics, which wants us to be as seemingly ignorant of any questions beyond "how to stay alive" as those at the center of its maelstrom (never mind that they all chose to be there, and the great power of storytelling lies in contextualizing events) - and apparently expects to be praised for it. This can make for a decent cinema - but I don't think it makes for a great one.

P. S. The film clings to its cloak of in media res realism with such a death grip that questions I would unhesitatingly ask of less-cohesive works are here tinged with "What if we just don't understand why it happened that way?" doubt. Nevertheless, I found interesting that somehow, soldiers in Saving Private Ryan were far more proactive about bandaging wounds than the squad in here, with one soldier sitting with a bloodied palm for >10 minutes and doing nothing about it. Even weirder is the scene where the squad runs into Bradleys firing off suppressive M-16 bursts towards the rooftops - while the Bradleys sit there with their barrels pointed towards the sky yet somehow silent, using neither the autocannons nor the MGs for the suppression for whatever reason.

Granted the realism is there, the bloodiness, grit and horror of firefights make you the audience curl into a fetal position to watch the rest of it.

I admit I liked Garland's CIVIL WAR and gave it a higher rating than this (8) but that had a story, a plot and more fleshed out characters to invest in. Here, you simply have a commandeering of a civilian house in the middle of the night, the entire group is ambushed and the rescue part. Nothing Else to explore.

The sound is on par and expected of a war movie, so are the effects and setpieces (where did they film this??) but you know after all that screaming, shooting and chaos, what I actually summarized from all this was that YES, American Troops will continue to be hated across countries where they are involved in conflicts, for whatever reason.

In this film, your troops take over a civilian house, hold the family hostage and leave them with nothing left but ruins and a possibly in harms way and be punished for "accomodating" your troops.

This particular method used in the film simply LEFT A BAD TASTE IN THE MOUTH especially during times of conflict in the real world where social media picks up and amplifies BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY.

Although I kind of liked this movie, but that final scene of Abandonment really was off-putting and appaling to see. That one single final scene simply ruined my positive sentiment of this title. I am sure I am not the only one feeling this way after seeing it.

No, this is nowhere near Saving Private Ryan or Blackhawk Down and is definitely not rewatchable as those titles.

This was the second time I finished an Alex Garland movie that wasn't what I expected. If you think this is going to be a traditional war movie you are in for a surprise.

There is basically no plot or storyline nor any character development to speak of. That is not what this movie is about. Instead you get a raw, gritty glimpse into the horrors of war. Or that's at least what I imagine since I luckily haven't been near a battlefield in my life. The cinematography is truly immersive. The radio communication felt realistic. The sound design however is where this shines the most. The sonic bashing you get pummeled with pretty much throughout is really impressive. I felt exhausted by the end. This has to be a frontrunner for an oscar for sound design you would think.

Despite this, for me to have this as a good movie it would have required more developed characters and a deeper storyline. Now it became simply a desperate struggle to escape. I'm also not quite comfortable with the glorification of the american aspect. More emphasis could have been placed on the civilians who got their home trashed for this showdown. But I won't dwell further on the political agenda, but state that this film is an experience if you let it take you on it. I have to imagine it is far inferior if not seen on the big screen so I was glad I got to see it at the theater.

As an experience this was thrilling, but as a movie it lacked pivotal elements.

I was disappointed. I have nothing to complain about the movie, there are no moments that would make you roll your eyes, but honestly, it was a bit boring. There is a realistic (I speak as an amateur) presentation of the battlefield, but there is no plot, character development, something that would make this movie stay in your memory for longer. There is also very little tension. The sound design deserves a mention, it is very good with sounds of bullets flying by, etc. But I can't imagine ever sitting down to watch this movie again. As for me, one of the most overrated movies I have ever watched.

Only the Americans could make an overblown "serious film about comradeship" out of a nothing event in a forgotten war. Don't get me wrong, the visceral, deafening and confusing nature of modern warfare is well captured here but throughout I was asking myself why? There are no characters and so there is no character development, at times I was having trouble remembering who was who, which led to a serious level of detachment. Also there is no sense of the wider conflict, this could just have well been a Hezbollah platoon in the Syrian civil war or a Russian platoon in the present conflict, it didn't really matter. Maybe that was the point, warfare is just a bunch of guys shooting at shadows and trying to stay alive, but if it was I could have got the same from a documentary.

"Warfare" is the kind of war movie that promises intensity but often delivers repetition. While it boasts high production value and some well-executed set pieces, the overall experience is weighed down by a lack of depth and a script that doesn't do its cast any favors.

The main issue lies in the dialogue, which feels unintelligent and uninspired. Characters speak in clichés, and any attempts at emotional or moral nuance fall flat. As a result, it's hard to feel truly invested in their fates, even when the explosions are going off around them.

Pacing-wise, the film drags in places where it should punch forward. There are long stretches where not much happens, and the tension fizzles. Still, there are moments-especially in the action choreography-where the movie shows flashes of what it could have been with a sharper script and better character development.

In the end, "Warfare" is passable entertainment for action fans who aren't looking for much beneath the surface. Just don't expect anything particularly clever or emotionally engaging, at least in my opinion.