Memory is a fickle thing. Time can obscure or alter truths, perspective plays an integral part, and trauma can muddy it all. What is truth, after all? Is it how we remember an event? The no-frills facts of it? How it felt? Perhaps it’s a mix of all of this and more, an amalgamation of emotion and event, subjective and inarguable. Maybe how we recall an incident’s occurrence is just as true as someone else’s recollection, even if at first, the two accounts conflict.
Filmmaker Alex Garland and Iraq War veteran-turned stunt coordinator Ray Mendoza’s co-written and co-directed “Warfare” is “based on memory” — an idea they both emphasize in interviews, on posters and in the opening text of the film itself. The 95-minute, high-tension action film chronicles the real life experiences of an American Navy SEAL platoon on a stakeout-gone-wrong in the Ramadi Province in Iraq. Memory might be the basis of “Warfare,” but the film’s adherence to it is its downfall.
Much of the construction of “Warfare” can be boiled down to one word: meticulous. With the exception of two notable moments, the film is told in real time, its sequences consisting of long takes, many at least five minutes long, and others upwards of 15. There’s a tension underneath it all that never quite lets up, pushing the story forwards.
These scenes feature careful blocking and camera positioning, successfully capturing multiple happenings in a single shot by featuring each of the many members of the platoon. There’s an almost theater-like quality to these long takes, each of the actors playing off each other, their emotions building naturally throughout a scene. The slow but steady trudge of anxiety that progresses under the story is a result of this as well, creating an oppressive tone that blankets the film as a whole. Tone is in turn aided by sound design, which is immersive and stylized both; around halfway through the film, when an explosion blows apart a tank, kills multiple soldiers, wounds others and pushes all of them to the ground with its force, the sound becomes muffled. Men scream and ears ring, everything suddenly underwater. Camera and sound work in tandem here, the low depth of field with focus just on the fronts of people’s faces complementing the cotton-stuffed sound, and emphasizing the role of individual perspective in this sequence.
From a technical standpoint, “Warfare” is a triumph. Every painstakingly-rehearsed and carefully-planned detail of this production is evident in the final film, which takes viewers and characters on a harrowing journey of a lifetime. The problem, though, and one that is difficult to even critique, is the story.
“A thing may happen and be a total lie,” writes Vietnam War veteran and novelist Tim O’Brien in his book “The Things They Carried.” “Another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.” Memory and truth, as concepts rather than assumed, unbreakable pillars, are explored in O’Brien’s book in great detail. Numerous times, he speaks directly to his reader, telling them that what he is saying is true or untrue, or asking them which they believe. He emphasizes a difference between what he terms “story-truth” and “happening-truth,” the former referring to the emotional core of a situation, and the latter getting at the pure actuality of it. He suggests that in storytelling, clarity can be gained in evoking feelings over facts, that in regards to combat, the emotions of a situation as traumatic and difficult to explain as war can sometimes be better described with some carefully-concocted fabrication. It’s not really lying, after all, if he’s honest about it.
There is no one or correct way to tell a war story, but there is something to be said about the effectiveness of a work like O’Brien’s in comparison to a work like Mendoza and Garland’s. Editorializing of their own stories aside, the question of impact arises. What is the artist trying to say? In the case of “Warfare,” the jury is still out. The only clear answer that arises is “war is bad,” but that’s a statement so simple and void of nuance that it begs the question of why this film needed to be told in this way.
With no intention of diminishing the lives lost in both the Vietnam War and Iraq War, it wouldn’t be incorrect to diagnose both conflicts as a fool’s errand, the latter of the two even more so for the fact that there was no mandatory conscription. Both wars took immense and unnecessary tolls on the civilian populations of Southeast Asia and The Middle East, and both undoubtedly capitalized on the fear and uncertainty-driven patriotism of their times. “The Things They Carried” is unabashed in its critique of these ideas; “Warfare” is so withdrawn from itself that it struggles to say anything at all.
Aside from a few moments of emotion from some of the characters — Tommy’s (Kit Connor) tear-streaked face comes to mind, as well as Erik’s (Will Poulter) hoarse and strained verbal commands — most of the characters of the group at the center of “Warfare” blur together. Even their dialogue often comes across as transcript logs rather than scripted scenes, dry to the point where it seems as though most lines could be swapped between characters with no consequences. In a single scene that opens the film, the men leer at a workout video, making faces and bumping around to the music. This scene is the only one that displays a solid sense of who these characters are as individuals and a unit. The supposed camaraderie that this troop has isn’t really showcased in the rest of the film, beyond assumptions of trust between them. This is perhaps where the disconnect between actor and audience occurs; the cast all got matching tattoos to commemorate their experience working together, yet the sense of brotherhood they built on set doesn’t translate on screen.
Elliot (Cosmo Jarvis) is a notable exception in this ensemble, the reasoning for which becomes clear in the film’s end credits, where footage shows the real-life Elliot visiting the set. Mendoza himself emphasizes he “kept returning to” Elliot’s story prior to making this film. From the moment he’s first introduced from behind the viewfinder of a sniper rifle, Jarvis commands the screen. His body is contorted in a way that’s clearly uncomfortable, yet he stays motionless, sweat beading at his brow. Elliot, in contrast to essentially every other character, feels fully-fledged, understood by script and actor alike. He’s the driving force for the entire first act, making the film’s lack of focus on him following his injury all the more baffling.
After the shocking tank explosion, Elliot and Sam (Joseph Quinn) are gravely hurt, the two of them dragged into the house. Sam’s guttural screams create a cacophonous wall of sound, going on for so long that one begins to wonder about the state of Quinn’s vocal chords by the end of it. In contrast, Elliot is silent for much of this, knocked out and on his back behind Sam — and here is where memory fails “Warfare.”
The truth and idea of memory behind a story can only carry it so far. There hits a point where a film must be a film, and “Warfare” barrels through this stage with brazen yet unfounded confidence. When everything happening on screen simply serves as a vehicle to move the plot forward, when the characters themselves — save for Connor’s Tommy, really — do not grow or change, when dialogue is feeble and plot plays out with the feeling that the story has happened rather than is happening, the stakes are lost. It becomes all too easy to check out. “Warfare” explores the limitations of memory in perhaps the least interesting way possible, using it as a tool for recreation rather than an exploration of subjectivity. The film as a whole feels more like an exercise in filmmaking rather than a cohesive or compelling story, and the constant anxiety that it imparts on viewers only masquerades as real emotion.
There are scant few moments where it seems like “Warfare” might be saying something, such as in the soldiers’ treatment of their allied Iraqi soldiers, or in a late scene featuring the family whose house is being occupied. But these scenes, like the film at large, are presented at face value.
Through the making of “Warfare,” Mendoza was able to honor his friend, and Garland was able to flex his technical skills in the filmmaking itself. For Mendoza, this is possibly an interesting directorial debut, given the film’s bold creative approach. For Garland, though, it is perhaps a troubling (if linear) addition to his recent directorial works. His preoccupation with the military is long-standing, with side or main characters in his films often having served, such as in 2018’s “Annihilation.” 2024’s “Civil War” caught flack for its lack of a stance, though that film’s focus on its more grounded characters still manages to push it forwards. Style and visual sensibilities have never been an issue for Garland, but his nuanced writing present in a film such as “Ex Machina” is woefully missing in “Warfare,” which feels dispassionate to the point of detachment.
Despite any and all criticisms levied at “Warfare,” both Mendoza and Garland appear to have achieved what they set out to do with this film. In one sense, it’s difficult to pull at the threads of a film for being surface-level, when being surface-level is its goal; all the same, if something doesn’t work, it just doesn’t work — and try as it might, “Warfare” does not work.