{"id":20312,"date":"2025-09-13T16:17:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T16:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/20312\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T16:17:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T16:17:12","slug":"stream-it-or-skip-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/20312\/","title":{"rendered":"Stream It Or Skip It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warfare (now streaming on HBO Max<\/a>, in addition to VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video<\/a>) finds filmmaker Alex Garland<\/a> taking another step away from the science fiction stories that have defined his career. This new A24 movie<\/a> stems from the production of Garland\u2019s 2024 disturbingly plausible speculative-fiction outing Civil War<\/a>, for which he hired Ray Mendoza, a former Navy SEAL and Iraq War veteran, as a military advisor (he had similar credits for other films, including Jurassic World and Lone Survivor). Garland and Mendoza subsequently conceived Warfare, co-writing and -directing a story based on a harrowing incident Mendoza and his SEAL team endured in 2006 during the Battle of Ramadi. The final result is one of the most brutally intense cinematic depictions of military conflict you\u2019ll likely ever see.<\/p>\n

WARFARE<\/a>: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?<\/p>\n

The Gist: We meet SEAL team Alpha One as the unit hoots and hollers at a provocative music video. It\u2019s a bonding moment. They\u2019re laughing and pumping their fists and geared up and ready to go \u2013 helmets, flak jackets, goggles, guns. Then, a hard cut to a pre-dawn setting: a tranquil Ramadi street. The camera sits still, contemplating the scene. Slowly, silently, Alpha One creeps up the road. Nods, hand signals, a jokey pantomime of sexy moves from the music video. They scale a concrete wall, open a gate, enter a home, awaken the residents. The SEALs break down a brick wall into a second apartment upstairs and shuttle the scared people, including children, into a bedroom.<\/p>\n

The SEALs set up shop for an unspoken mission \u2013 or if it is spoken, it\u2019s lost to us civilians amidst dense procedural military chatter. But it soon becomes clear that they\u2019re monitoring a building that could be an enemy stronghold. Among the men are Alpha One leader Erik (Will Poulter), communications specialist Ray (D\u2019Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), \u201cnew guy\u201d gunner Tommy (Kit Connor) and a handful of others, including a pair of Iraqi translators who have combat training. Elliott (Cosmo Jarvis) and Frank (Taylor John Smith) are snipers, situated upstairs, watching a cafe across the street through a rifle scope, noting any suspicious-looking men. Long, dull moments of silence pass. The crosshairs sweep past children and other passersby, lingering on a man in track pants, and another in a headscarf. Frank asks if they\u2019re \u201cpeeking\u201d or \u201cprobing\u201d the SEALs\u2019 location. \u201cPeeking with serious intent to probe,\u201d Elliott replies.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re definitely probing: Soon, more men arrive, some of them armed. People begin to clear the sidewalks as a call to arms plays over a PA. Not good. \u201cLooks like they\u2019re getting their jihad on,\u201d quips one of the SEALs. A grenade plunks into the upstairs room, its explosion stunning Elliott, Frank and Tommy. They gather their wits and retreat downstairs and Ray calls for extraction and a tank arrives and they toss a smoke grenade for cover and as they hustle to the tank a bomb goes off. A greenish haze lingers in the air as the SEALs regain their wits, slowly. All sounds are muted. One of the translators lies in the road, his upper half intact, his lower half in scattered bits. Two SEALS are gruesomely injured. Ray and others shake off the cobwebs and drag the wounded men back into the house, Sam (Joseph Quinn) screaming in pain and Elliott with horribly mangled legs and appearing to be dead. This mission went to hell. Whether they can escape from hell is the question.<\/p>\n

\"Where Photo: A24<\/p>\n

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Warfare is likely to stand next to The Hurt Locker<\/a> as the definitive depictions of the Iraq War \u2013 although it ultimately has more in common stylistically with the grueling battle sequences in Saving Private Ryan<\/a> and Full Metal Jacket<\/a>, and tonally with a heavily procedural film like Zero Dark Thirty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Performance Worth Watching: Although Poulter, Charles Melton and Michael Gandolfini are the high-profile members of this large ensemble, it\u2019s Reservation Dogs Emmy nominee Woon-A-Tai who\u2019s prime for a breakout<\/p>\n

Memorable Dialogue: \u201cWho\u2019s \u2018the severely wounded\u2019? Is it me?\u201d \u2013 Sam<\/p>\n

Sex and Skin: None.<\/p>\n

\"WARFARE, Photo: Murray Close \/\u00a9 A24 \/ Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

Our Take: Warfare absolutely and unquestionably plays out in the fog of war, sometimes literally. Why, exactly, these men are in this particular place on this particular day is never made clear, and is illustrative of the big question about the Iraq War: Why are we here? It seems like a provocation backed with no satisfactory logic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That vague almost-metaphor is about as political as Mendoza and Garland get. Otherwise, they stick with the nuts and bolts of the mission and the authenticity of the moment. The dialogue is either impenetrably specific in its procedural jargon or guttural expressions of pain and fear. It\u2019s silence, then violence. Some will grouse that it isn\u2019t political enough or ensconced in the contextual discourse pushing back against an unjustified conflict, that it\u2019s too stripped-down to tell a complete story and therefore reiterates war-is-hell-isms we\u2019ve seen in many prior films. But frankly, that\u2019s shortsighted; we\u2019ve been over and over that in many prior films as well. Warfare justifies itself by building a story \u2013 notably about rescuees rather than rescuers, subverting a common movie trope \u2013 upon the granular details of this time and place, and depicts the horrors of war with such intensity and realism, its relevance is self-evident.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Presented with an end-credits tribute to the men Mendoza served with \u2013 here layered with a thin veneer of fiction \u2013 the film strives for authenticity and bullseyes it. Garland and Mendoza\u2019s direction (Garland stated that his role was more \u201csupportive\u201d than leading) is highly technical and balanced with base-level terror, a combination rendering the film\u2019s immediacy undeniable. There\u2019s no rah-rah comradeship or cliches to be found here, just a real-time snapshot of men doing difficult jobs that might destroy them outright. And if that doesn\u2019t happen, they\u2019ll live to question the necessity, their motives, the world that put them there. But nobody thinks about that in the moment, when procedure and survival rush to the forefront along with the adrenaline and all-consuming fear.<\/p>\n

Our Call: Warfare is as it says on the box. Far from an \u201centertaining\u201d portrayal of violence \u2013 and definitely a difficult watch \u2013 it\u2019s an honest, shrewdly constructed and essential modern-war film. STREAM IT.<\/p>\n

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warfare (now streaming on HBO Max, in addition to VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video) finds filmmaker Alex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[21373,21374,21375,21376,156,21377,21378,21379,409,111,139,69,21380,6149,21381,21382],"class_list":["post-20312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-action-movies","tag-alex-garland","tag-charles-melton","tag-dpharaoh-woon-a-tai","tag-entertainment","tag-kit-connor","tag-michael-gandolfini","tag-movie-reviews","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ray-mendoza","tag-war","tag-war-movies","tag-will-poulter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}