22 hours Ago
Warfare (15, 95 mins) Verdict: Sound, fury – and silence Rating: One November night in 2006, a team of US Navy SEALs, on a reconnaissance mission ahead of a bigger force of American Marines arriving the next day, occupied a house in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. Alex Garland's enthralling film Warfare, unfolding in real time, tells the story of what happened in the ensuing 95 minutes. It is a picture not for the faint-hearted.
Credited as Garland's co-writer and co-director in this project, Ray Mendoza is a former SEAL who, with the help of others who were there, ensures that it is a painstakingly accurate depiction of actual events. 'This film uses only their memories,' declares an opening caption. Mendoza, the platoon's communications officer, is played by D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, with Will Poulter as the young commanding officer and Cosmo Jarvis as the lead sniper, Elliott Miller, to whom the film is dedicated and whose sustained shrieks of agonising pain after suffering devastating leg injuries might well accompany you all the way home.
This is an all-American tale, yet rather satisfyingly it is mostly Brits – Garland, Poulter, Jarvis and other actors including Joseph Quinn and Finn Bennett – who tell it. They do so superbly. Moreover, while Garland as a director has had significant success with sci-fi and dystopian thrillers (most notably, last year's Civil War), there is no cinematic hellscape more affecting even than one rooted in present-day realism.
The message, hammered home at the end when we see the real participants alongside those who played them, is simple: this is the world in which we live. But if war is sound and fury, Garland focuses mostly on the sound. For a long chunk of this film, the tension springs from near-silence.
Unlike many lesser war movies, the crash, bang, wallop is preceded by an extended spell of hush as the platoon discreetly breaks into and commandeers the house, terrifying the two families who live there. Alex Garland's..
. Brian Viner.
