Title – Warfare (2025)

Director – Alex Garland (Annihilation) & Ray Mendoza (feature debut)

Cast – Will Poulter, Joseph Quinn, Cosmo Jarvis, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Michael Gandolfini

Plot – A group of US Navy Seals on a mission in Iraq experience the trauma, thrills, dangers and brotherhood that come with the territory.  

“Everything is based on memory”

Review by Eddie on 16/05/2025

One of the most visceral and intense cinematic experiences from recent memory, Warfare sees directing duo Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza create a unique and unrelenting Iraq war feature that’s steeped in the personal experiences of Mendoza and his Navy Seal squad mates memories of a mission gone wrong in their tour during the 2006 period.

Previously collaborating in a behind the scenes fashion with Garland on his hit 2024 film Civil War, Mendoza and Garland make for great directing partners as Warfare’s main event takes hold in real time across a pulse-pounding experience that does demand the big screen treatment as we are thrown into the heart of a 90 minute battle of life and death.

While it’s silly to ever think a film could truly capture the horror, shock, energy and chaos of a real-life skirmish or confrontation, it’s hard to think of a feature film ever getting closer than Warfare does here, calling to mind the unflinching nature of war classic Come and See or the intensity of well-regarded Ridley Scott epic Black Hawk Down, all the while doing things its own way, carving out a distinctive identity for itself along the way.

Opening with a brilliantly unexpected starting scene and then moving forward to take place without a film score, Warfare’s incredibly designed sound and audio enhances our experience with Mendoza’s crew that includes Will Poulter’s squad leader Erik, Cosmo Jarvis’s sniper Elliot and Joseph Quinn’s on edge Sam, creating a gripping, confronting and unrelenting experience that might not be what all viewers were seeking out but becomes one that demands to be respected.

Taking place almost entirely within the confines of a singular house, what Garland and Mendoza have managed to do within such tight confines is no small feat and the work of their talented cast members sees all key players deliver noteworthy performances, with the increasingly impressive Jarvis, Quinn and Poulter all standing out with Poulter’s Erik in particular becoming one of the most memorable iterations of a squad leader under pressure seen in the modern war film collection.

Claiming to be taking a step back from directing duties in the last couple of years, it’s fantastic to see Garland continue to work in the directional space, while he was reportedly playing more of a supportive role to Mendoza here as he stepped into the directors chair for the first time, Warfare has Garland’s fingerprints all over its DNA and it becomes another fine feather in the cap of Garland, who continues to make a valid claim at being one of the standout Hollywood creatives.

Final Say –

An experience that demands the big screen treatment or the best at home screening one can source, Warfare isn’t a stereotypical piece of gung-ho Americanised entertainment but a gut punch piece of white knuckle filmmaking that offers up an immersive viewing experience few films could match.

4 1/2 bottles of water out of 5