Warfare (2025) Movie Review: A Brutal Tribute

Helmed by Alex Garland and war veteran Ray Mendoza, Warfare is an unrelenting, brutal tribute to those who served on the battlefield.

Since his war days, Mendoza has had a successful career as a Military Advisor on films like Lone Survivor and Alex Garland’s excellent Civil War. Now, he helms his feature-length directorial debut… alongside none other than Alex Garland himself. Warfare is a recreation of the 2006 ambush and evacuation, in which D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (of Reservation Dogs) stars as Mendoza. Will Poulter (of Death of a Unicorn), Cosmo Jarvis (of Shōgun), Joseph Quinn (of Gladiator II), Kit Connor (of The Wild Robot), and Charles Melton (of May December) are among the many who costar as other SEALs.

It’s Mendoza’s real-life connection to the story that gives Warfare its own grizzly voice. It’s apparent extremely early on that this was written and directed by someone who knows the war setting firsthand. He portrays the action and bloodshed very realistically, of course. But just as prominent are the numerous smaller details that a lot of other war movies don’t usually nail to this extent, like the way soldiers communicate with extensive war terminology the likes of which I’m not even going to pretend I always understood. Any time it’s coming in through compressed, static radio audio, I would swear I’m listening to actual audio from the war.

You instantly buy that these are top-of-the-line troops… which, in turn, makes it horrifically jarring when the situation gets so severe that they break and show human vulnerability. These soldiers make mistakes and even have selfish moments, but the merciless environment is so well established that you understand how any soldier, no matter how well trained, could slip up.

Outside of the opening few minutes, Warfare takes place entirely in real-time. As in, everything plays out moment-by-moment without any time skips or flashbacks, even as we also get the perspective of aerial support and innocents caught in the crossfire. This is as immersive as you’d hope, for more reasons than I was anticipating. The first half hour contains no gunshots or action, instead letting us sit with these troops as they stake out the territory, make observations, occasionally shoot the breeze, and very, very slowly pick up on the enemy getting the drop on them.

This opening stretch immerses you into the quieter, more patient, but essential side of military service, in which a lot of coordination and expertise is still needed even when everything is calm. Plus, when you know all hell will eventually break loose, it becomes agonizing to wait, and wait, and wait for it to happen, ramping up the tension perfectly. 

On top of every individual gunshot feeling as impactful as twenty, Warfare occasionally plays around with its sound, like how it transitions between “normal” audio and the heavily muffled perception of sound from a soldier in searing pain, all without breaking the real-time format. The most effective part of the entire film is when radio commotion blares through a character’s earpiece as he’s scrambling through chaos… and then that audio gets louder and louder, soon drowning out everything else, until this character finally can’t take it and cuts the feed. That’s one of the best ways of capturing such heart-pounding anxiety I’ve ever seen in a war movie.

Mendoza, whom Garland has stated took the lead between the two directors, does not inject Warfare with many cinematic flourishes. Civil War, as grounded as it is, still has more visual flair. But that was a great call in service of completely de-heightening the action and putting you in the troops’ place the entire way through. Only briefly do we break away to get a sense of the grander scale of what’s happening, followed by an immediate cut back to how earth-shattering it is for those on the ground. This is David J. Thompson’s first cinematographer credit in a feature film, and he executes Mendoza and Garland’s vision perfectly. 

But I’m sure, for some, the question remains: does Warfare ever take on a political angle or comment on the context of the Iraq War? The short answer: no. Warfare doesn’t inherently glorify nor condemn America’s involvement in the war… but you could interpret it as doing so if you want. There’s a family present whose home is hijacked as the team’s base, and the film, though relatively briefly, explicitly shows us the fear inflicted upon them by the SEALs. It also shows many other homes being destroyed by American tanks as a show of force. Yet at the same time, this is still a tribute to U.S. soldiers meant to honor and remember them. It just lets you watch everything play out and assign your own ideology to the context.

In fact, the biggest thing going against Warfare is that it breaks zero new ground in its story or writing. These events are compelling because they’re inspired by what actually happened, and they reflect countless other real veterans’ accounts of war, past and present. But as a film narrative, that’s as far as it goes. The characters don’t stand out from one another, there are no arcs, and the movie again doesn’t say anything about war in any capacity. Given the kind of from-memory tribute Mendoza is going for, I obviously wouldn’t expect anything like that. But if you want a war film with a screenplay as strong as its craft, that’s not the kind of movie this was ever meant to be.

Does that mean I wouldn’t recommend it? Hell no. Warfare mightily accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, which is to give you an authentic, brutal, often disturbing look inside a real war veteran’s memory in one of the most perilous moments of his and his fellow soldiers’ lives. Mendoza and Garland pull no punches here. They’ve made an experience that grabs you by the throat and never lets up. It may not be anything revolutionary, but its genuine voice, distinct approach, and expert touch make it a very worthy addition to one of the harshest genres in film.

Warfare will be released theatres in the US and Canada on April 11, 2025, in UK & Irish cinemas on April 18, and globally in theaters in April-June 2025.