Though Warfare is certainly one of the most visceral films of the year, there is also a curious distance to it; this has partly to do with the all-encompassing generalization of the title. It’s not named after the squad(s) of Navy SEALs involved, nor “The Battle of Ramadi” (the 2006 Iraq War conflict on which the action is based), nor any other event-specific element the salience of which would have worked perfectly fine as title—it’s simply “warfare.” This is what happens in war, the choice seems to say. Swap these young American soldiers for WWII paratroopers or Napoleonic cavalrymen, or Zulu warriors, for that matter: at the end of the day, they can be substituted for any number of able-bodied youths who are sent off somewhere to fight together and kill and, likely, die.
Yet, at the same time, there are things about this particular episode of bloodletting that are inextricable from its period in history. These are American Special Forces, and the writer-director team of Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza (a former SEAL whose firsthand account of Ramadi serves as the basis of Warfare‘s narrative) do not skimp on the accuracy of militaristic procedure: their script is almost entirely jargon, though judiciously peppered with boyish camaraderie and moments of unfiltered human horror. Even a naïve viewer can see that the attention to detail is unique, and the film certainly takes its time walking the viewer through the almost bureaucratic process of holding down a defensive position, under enemy fire, whilst requesting extraction after your position has been exposed.
I do not mean to exaggerate or mock with the use of the term “bureaucratic.” There are call signs galore, and instructions/information must be relayed multiple times, repeated and re-confirmed, during even the most chaotic of circumstances. This may be Warfare‘s best aspect, beyond even its on-the-ground accuracy: in conveying how success, for this species of combat, necessitates the orderly, by-the-book following of procedure, across multiple levels of authority (of lethality), despite the shock of seeing your friend’s legs turned into so much shredded meat by an IED as he begs for you to ease his pain. Of course, things will go wrong, and procedure will have to be fudged with, and sometimes, it’s more ideal for your Iraqi adjuncts to take point and risk dying in place of your actual squad mates, though you might lose the ability to thoroughly communicate with the terrified civilians you have rounded up and detained, and whose residence you have made a temporary base.
And though the sight of blown-apart torsos might temporarily displace your consciousness from its environs so that even the rush of a fighter jet flying dangerously low over the rooftops in a “show of force” seems muted—never mind all that, you have a job to do. And if you’re too fucked up, well, someone else is going to have to give the orders. You do want to go home, don’t you?
Others have pointed out how Warfare does not follow conventional War Film narrative structures: there is no lone hero to root for, no pontificating about war’s cruelty, no morose recollections of a hometown sweetheart, etc. The only real hint of what these men are like outside the theater of war is the beginning scene, where they gather to watch, and dance along to, Eric Prydze’s 2004 hit tune “Call on Me.” The somewhat jarring introduction both beefs up the film’s sense of realism (this was an actual routine for Mendoza’s team in his warring days) and also provides an enthusiastic counterpoint to the grimness of the next ninety minutes; though there is also a sense of lost, or despoiled, adolescence, and/or even an ironic splash of Western hedonism as the men prepare to spill blood on Iraqi soil.
Though perhaps it may have been better served by casting less well-known actors, and thus playing into the generality of its title, Warfare is not a primarily performance-driven film, to begin with. Yes, good acting is required to pull off the believability of combat experience (its ennui in addition to more physical matters like firefight choreography), and good acting is exhibited down the line (the cast is a who’s who of rising male stars: the Brits Will Poulter and Joseph Quinn; and Americans D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and Charles Melton, among others), but the dialogue is very barebones and character work quite limited, despite some nice subtleties on the part of the performers (mostly through banter, and wordless exchanges or expressions).
The major showcase of Warfare is its production/sound design (even commonplace sounds piqued to one’s attention, as it would be in the stress of war), and the stellar camerawork by David J. Thompson. Guided by Mendoza’s know-how, the camera often feels like another squad mate, trapped behind the same fortifications, disturbingly fixated on the same wounds; and sometimes the viewer’s perspective is that of some overhead thermal imaging device, which renders the proceedings eerily video game-like as it transforms people into miniscule heat signatures.
Fin Oates’s editing is effective, serviceably guiding the viewer through its tight ninety-five minute runtime without showy intrusions; the same can be said for its score, as the movie lacks one entirely. The only music that occurs is in the opening scene and at the end, with Low’s “Dancing and Blood”—a track from 2018 whose lyrical content acts as a grim retrospective on the carnage of America’s forays in the Middle East.
A short disclaimer before the film gets going proper states that the events of Warfare are based on the memories of the troops who experienced it firsthand, and nothing else. But to view the film as a kind of “memory play” would be slightly misleading, apart from the obvious aspect of Mendoza’s autobiographical input. Warfare seems almost too objective, professionally detached, even, to be fully believable as stemming only from the subjective experiences of those besieged SEALs. Even the closeness of Garland/Mendoza’s camera cannot penetrate into the minds of these young men, to convey how Ramadi affected them in the following years. But maybe this is their point: The memory is just that, of warfare, played out in microscale, where there are only objectives to attain, targets to neutralize, and one’s resistance to intermittent terrors, to the adjacent body writhing in pain.
A brief postlude, though, breaks from what is literally possible for any of the American soldiers to remember. After the soldiers have been evacuated, the detained family step through the wreckage of their home, in shock. Outside, the insurgents gather, almost at a loss as to what to do now that the invaders are gone. These figures wander over the dust, as anonymous as any memory can afford them to be, suspicious shades of a violence struggled against yet only partially understood.
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More from Ezekiel Yu: Just Tell Me What To Do: Reviewing “If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You” (2025), Ill-Fitting: on Emilie Blichfeldt’s “The Ugly Stepsister” (2025), Lyrics for a Lovelorn: on Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon” (2025)