5/12 ForReel Score | 2/5 Stars

I can’t remember being more skeptical of a film before its release than I was for Warfare, directed by former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland. Based on the memories of Mendoza and his comrades during the battle of Fallujah in 2006, I was petrified that Warfare would glorify the United States military in a time where the last thing we need is sympathy for colonizers in the Middle East. You can’t play coy about reality, which is why Garland and Mendoza put so much time and effort into recreating the worst day of Mendoza’s life from a completely objective stance. Unfortunately, their recreation is so successful from a formal perspective that it eventually becomes quite numbing to get through, if not boring.

Formally, Warfare is about as perfect as war films get. It looks great, it sounds phenomenal, and Mendoza’s experience as a SEAL as well as military advisor for prior films such as Lone Survivor and Civil War goes a long way in terms of what you’re seeing onscreen. The military jargon feels accurate, but it’s not inside-baseball enough to completely lose the viewer either. The realism is there, but the dedication to realism might be so overwhelming that I couldn’t bring myself to emotionally attach myself to the film. And, maybe that’s a perk and not a bug, because I don’t want to emotionally attach myself to these characters. Mendoza and Garland’s barebones screenplay doesn’t allow for any sympathy, except for the family whose house the soldiers invade at the beginning of the film. Even then, they’re depicted so rarely (outside of a poignant final moment) that you almost forget that they’re in the bullet-riddled house with the soldiers. I’m thankful that Garland and Mendoza tried to make the film as unglorious as possible (aside from a very out-of-place montage at the end) and to indicate that the Americans are the aggressors in this scenario, but in doing so, Warfare feels more like an expensive LARPing session than a narrative to get invested in.

Garland’s knack for symbolism and visual storytelling is still ever present, with so many outstanding shots and moments that made the film feel a lot more interesting than it actually was. The shot of the soldiers breaking through a wall to get into the family’s apartment is evocative of Jack Torrance shredding the bathroom door in The Shining, with the innocent victims screaming in terror as the invaders get closer. After a massive explosion, the camera takes a second to gaze at a fallen power line, as the dust and smoke cloud the sun. There are lots of great shots of the faces of these men, who are actively being rattled and traumatized by what’s happening onscreen. The best performance in this ensemble of fresh-faced heartthrobs is from Will Poulter, who internalizes the real-time trauma so well that it’s the closest the film comes to having character arcs. There’s a quiet moment I really liked where Joseph Quinn’s character wipes dust off a bedframe in a child’s bedroom, disturbing the peace in the slightest minutia. At the post-screening Q&A, Garland mused on how the film exists as a microcosm for the Iraq War itself: it starts with occupation, the action is a direct effect of their presence, and the Americans run away while the citizens are forced to pick up the pieces.

Coming out of Warfare, I felt mostly thankful that Garland is taking a hiatus from the director’s chair to work on the new 28 Years Later trilogy with Danny Boyle and Nia DaCosta. Even if I liked Civil War, it’s sandwiched between Men – one of my least favorite films ever – and Warfare, a film I feel completely detached from. If this is the end of what Clarisse Loughrey calls Garland’s “trilogy of violence,” it’s going out with a literal bang and a figurative whimper.

Movie Review: "Warfare" Is All War With Little Substance