When last we left Alex Garland, he was busy parsing the American left/right divide and the moral responsibilities of war journalism in the phenomenally stupid Civil War, an intentional provocation that bore no actual point of view. In doing press for that film, Garland lamented that those receiving the movie negatively only did so because he didn’t delineate which “side” the movie took or meaningfully detail circumstances of the the conflict he’d conceived. In truth, the issue was that he didn’t actually have much to say about any of what was presented other than… “seems bad.”
That blinkered single-mindedness has given Garland a case of what they call broken clock syndrome. His new film, Warfare, is an almost completely decontextualized work, an experiential film presenting a single incident in extremely accurate detail, based only on the memories of the people involved. Along with his co-writer and co-director Ray Mendoza — who was indeed present for the film’s events and is portrayed therein — Garland has concocted a really impressive piece of action filmmaking that strips virtually everything out of the “narrative” other than detail and incident, relying on performance, sound, and visuals to tell an extremely simple story.
It’s 2006 in Ramadi, and SEAL team Alpha One (aka the Bushmasters) commandeers a civilian residence to recon an enemy position, sequestering the families inside. Gradually, the SEALs notice that there’s increasing activity outside, and they’re also informed that there’s going to be a temporary halt to their air support. As if on cue, that’s when a grenade gets tossed at them, and things quickly go from bad to worse. Their CASEVAC Bradley gets hit with an IED, which causes even more severe casualties and strands them all under siege.
It’s tempting to compare Warfare to larger scale combat/historical epics like Black Hawk Down or 13 Hours, but those films are sized almost entirely different in scale and scope. Both dealt with extremely high-profile events, well-documented by journalists and leaving sweeping aftereffects for U.S. policy; there’s a reason they made big blockbuster movies out of those incidents with huge supporting casts of well-known actors. Warfare is by contrast a blip on the radar in the broader context of the Iraq campaign, featuring few recognizable faces (Will Poulter being the best-known, although Michael Gandolfini is here, as well as up-and-comer D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Mendoza) and a cast of characters who mostly aren’t even named in dialogue.
It’s a risk to stage something like this and provide little more than faces and fear to engender an audience’s emotional connection to the film, but here the gamble pays off. The direction is largely economical and purposeful; if you’re seeing something, it’s because they saw it, and if you’re hearing something, it’s because that’s what it sounds like — though there must certainly be a little license involved in the depiction of events, especially in the sound design, where some clearly subjective choices are made. But ultimately, Warfare is less a brutal, baffling ordeal of violence and metal, and more an experiential IV drip, strapping viewers right into position and along for the visceral ride. And at last, Garland’s usually fatal proclivities have finally brought him to a thrilling piece of what can only be called survival horror, where nothing matters but what is smack dab in front of your face.
DIRECTOR: Ray Mendoza & Alex Garland; CAST: D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Michael Gandolfini, Noah Centineo; DISTRIBUTOR: A24; IN THEATERS: April 11; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 35 min.
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