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SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the new movie Warfare (now in theaters) . If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk. Watching Warfare , it's apparent that the mission statement of directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland is to present the eponymous experience without traditional elements of dramatization – but that doesn't mean it's without big and memorable cinematic moments.
The sequence where the evacuation vehicle is hit with an IED is powerful to make your head spin a bit as you sit comfortably in a movie theater recliner, and there are key emotional scenes like Joseph Quinn's Sam discovering the extent of his injuries and Will Poulter's Erik realizing he needs to cede command. These moments stick out in reflecting on the finished work, but as Joseph Quinn explained during the Los Angeles press day for Warfare last month, picking out specific memories from the production aren't easy. Because of the realism that the film was going for and its very tight scope, Quinn apparently experienced it as a blur.
Said the actor, [The days] all kind of merged into one, if I'm honest. I think because of the nature of the film itself, it was all very contained within this building. So the working days themselves kind of felt very similar.
.. We rehearsed a lot in the three weeks prior to the shooting days.
So we had three weeks of, boot camp where we were rehearsing. We rehearsed it like a play, actually, so we were kind of pretty prepared. Come shooting days to to kind of get through the work that we'd already rehearsed.
The specific scene with Sam in discussion here comes shortly after the aforementioned IED blast that rocks the Navy SEAL team operating in Ramadi during the Iraq War in 2006. Severely injured from shrapnel hits, he is immobilized and in great pain, and he is in a state of shock as he understands the extent of his injuries after his fellow soldiers help take him off the street and back inside the house where they had set up a surveillance operation. Once the action gets going in Warfare , however, it really doesn't stop, and while Joseph Quinn's Sam is given prominent focus, the intensity of the entire production impacts how the actor looks back on the experience Obviously, as you mentioned, that was a kind of intense moment.
But there was an intensity that kind of prevailed throughout the film after this event. So I think it was up to all of us to kind of maintain that, energy throughout the rest of the film and to give off camera support as much as we could, because otherwise the film wouldn't really cut together. So we wanted to kind of maintain this sense of shock, the sense of chaos and this sense of these young men trying to make sense of a really challenging situation and to get out of that.
While Joseph Quinn didn't say it, that sounds utterly exhausting. Will Poulter Explains How Warfare Achieves A Different Kind Of Realism Than Most War Movies The scene alluded to earlier with Will Poulter 's Erik possesses a different kind of intensity. Removed from blood, pain, and explosions, the character takes a minute aside to reconcile with the fact that the moment has gotten entirely on top of him.
He comes to terms with the fact that he is not in a state to lead, and he gives command to Charles Melton's Jake. CINEMABLEND NEWSLETTER Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News In a separate interview during the same Warfare press day, Will Poulter told CinemaBlend's Jeff McCobb that he sees it as a scene that exemplifies what Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland have made with their movie: I think one of the things that scene does pretty well is it resembles, certainly, a goal of the film, which is not to kind of glorify, romanticize, or sort of make entertainment of trauma, which I think some war films kind of have done. And it emphasizes the harsh realities and the negative consequences of war, and also, the fact that, like, you know, while some films seek to kind of, I think, dare I say, make the actions of people at war look kind of cool, this film didn't shy away from those negative consequences, including mistakes.
In the moment as depicted in Warfare , Erik has responsibility, but he has a human moment and understands that he has been rendered unfit. It's not a traditional depiction of bravery that we see in war movies, but the idea with the film is bucking tradition, and Poulter sees the hand-off and the character's acceptance of his own limitations as notable: At the risk of contradicting myself, I simultaneously see it as a brilliant act of leadership on the part of the gentleman I represented, because part of being a good leader, I think, is being aware of when you are not best placed to lead and being able to defer and hand over responsibility. And, you know, I knew that in handing it over to Charles and the gentleman that he represents.
like it was the best decision. Also starring D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Cosmo Jarvis, Michael Gandolfini, Henry Zaga, and Kit Connor in addition to the aforementioned Joseph Quinn Will Poulter, and Charles Melton, Warfare arrived at the box office this past weekend after weeks of developing buzz and critical acclaim . While the stars may not remember all of the specific details of making it, the film will be recalled as one of cinema's most intense of 2025.
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