Warfare: an 'honest' account of brutal engagement in Iraq
Alex Garland's film focuses on the 'overwhelming, sensory journey' of conflict

Alex Garland's new film "feels like the most honest depiction of modern warfare I can recall seeing", said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph.
Co-written and co-directed by Ray Mendoza, a former US navy Seal (who served as a consultant on Garland's film "Civil War"), it is based on his memories of a real-life incident: a botched engagement in the Iraqi city of Ramadi in about 2006.
In the opening scene, a group of Seals descend on a civilian home in the cover of darkness, terrifying its residents; the men then set up sniper-surveillance positions from which to give cover for a ground operation, and wait.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
There's no banter or chat about what they'll do after the war, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian: just minutes of silence as they sit in a state of "hyper-alertness". Then, in a flash, disaster strikes, and all is carnage and chaos.
"Warfare" is in some ways similar to the rash of war-on-terror films that came out 20 years ago, such as "The Hurt Locker"; but this film is "almost fierce in its indifference to political or historical context" (a resource that should be "more readily available" two decades on); and there is "almost no conventional narrative progression".
Garland and Mendoza are "concerned only with the overwhelming, sensory journey that is conflict", said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent. The film is all about the moment: the pain, fear and blood. In this work of "attempted neutrality", there's no musical score to manipulate viewers' emotions; none of the characters have sympathetic backstories. But the violence depicted on screen didn't erupt from nowhere; there was a path to it, and the film feels unmoored without that context.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
How Zohran Mamdani's NYC mayoral run will change the Democratic Party
Talking Points The candidate poses a challenge to the party's 'dinosaur wing'
-
Book reviews: '1861: The Lost Peace' and 'Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers'
Feature How America tried to avoid the Civil War and the link between lead pollution and serial killers
-
Brian Wilson: the troubled genius who powered the Beach Boys
Feature The musical giant passed away at 82
-
Book reviews: '1861: The Lost Peace' and 'Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers'
Feature How America tried to avoid the Civil War and the link between lead pollution and serial killers
-
Brian Wilson: the troubled genius who powered the Beach Boys
Feature The musical giant passed away at 82
-
Grilled radicchio with caper and anchovy sauce recipe
The Week Recommends Smoky twist on classic Italian flavours is perfect to grill, drizzle and devour
-
Echo Valley: a 'twisty modern noir' starring Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney
The Week Recommends This tense thriller about a mother and daughter is 'American cinema for grown ups'
-
Larry Lamb shares his favourite books
The Week Recommends The actor picks works by Neil Sheehan, Annie Proulx and Émile Zola
-
Stereophonic: an 'extraordinary, electrifying odyssey'
The Week Recommends David Adjmi's Broadway hit about a 1970s rock band struggling to record their second album comes to the West End
-
Shifty: a 'kaleidoscopic' portrait of late 20th-century Britain
The Week Recommends Adam Curtis' 'wickedly funny' documentary charts the country's decline using archive footage
-
Lollipop: a single mother trapped in a 'hellish catch-22'
The Week Recommends Daisy May Hudson's moving debut feature is a gut puncher in the Ken Loach tradition