Warfare (2025)

 

               “Warfare” is the latest feature film from A24. The independent studio is on a hot streak that has resulted in numerous awards for its films and actors in them. It has won Best Picture Oscars for “Moonlight” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once”. It’s “Zone of Interest” won Best International Film last year. Although most noted for horror and arthouse films, it has made some war movies like “Civil War”. “Warfare” is its attempt to make a very realistic war movie. It was written and directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland. The film is personal for Mendoza, who was a Navy SEAL in Iraq. It is based on an incident involving Mendoza and his platoon in Ramadi in 2006. He and Garland conducted extensive interviews of the participants and wrote the screenplay from this research. The movie is dedicated to Elliott Miller, who lost a leg and his voice in the incident. The actors were put through a boot camp and it shows.

               The movie leads with a scene where the platoon is geared up for a mission and prepping by watching a workout tape with hot aerobics chicks. Camaraderie established. And we recognize them as American young men from the videogame generation. Fade to the platoon on a night mission in an Iraqi neighborhood. The strict noise discipline and lack of soundtrack is the first clue that the movie will be realistic. “I like this house. I think we are gonna take it.” They enter the house and put the family in a room under guard. They are there to establish an observation post to monitor possible al Qaeda activity. Although they have no screw-ups in the squad and they do nothing to give away their position, a grenade is thrown through a window, wounding Miller (Cosmo Jarvis from “Shogun”). They call for a medical evacuation, but the house is under assault. When a Bradley fighting vehicle arrives, an IED ratchets up the FUBAR.

               First, let me get my petty criticism out of the way. This movie has a stupid title. It’s like Mendoza and Garland sat in a room with the studio suits and they brainstormed a title. “What’s the movie about?” “Warfare”. “Well, why don’t we call it that?” I assume these were the same geniuses who entitled “Civil War”, but at least that movie was dealing with a civil war in America in the future. This movie is about one small incident in a counter-insurgency. It reminds me of “The Great War” which is a fictional story of black soldiers in WWI. Grandiose, much?

               “Warfare” is the kind of movie which causes me to assume it is accurate because things happen that a screenwriter would not put in for entertainment purposes. The movie sets up a scenario that forebodes the cliches that come with typical war movies. The house should be an Alamo. The sniper should kill several bad guys. The squad should be whittled down. There should be dysfunction. The brass back at base should make bad decisions that cost lives. At least one of the men should be a screwup and/or a coward. The enemy should be slaughtered. None of those tropes occur. The movie is not predictable. This might actually be drawback when it comes to word of mouth because the movie has a very low body count. Don’t get me wrong, I commend the movie for being the opposite of combat porn. And I appreciate the military jargon that is not dumbed down for the audience. However, unless you are familiar with military terminology, you are going to be in the dark as to what the hell they are talking about. Do you know what MAM means? Does your wife?

               The movie cost only $20 million. They saved money on the cast, none of whom is famous. They do a good job playing soldier. The boot camp worked. They move and act like their characters did. Unfortunately, in bringing the movie in at only 95 minutes, there was no room for character development. And the enemy is faceless.

               The movie would be more impactful if the US was still at war in Iraq. It is excellent in portraying modern urban warfare. This starts with the fact that missions in a hostile environment often go off script. You can never be sure of when you might end up poking the bee hive. The public needs to know what our young men and women (of which there are none in the movie) are faced with. The men are not like the grunts you see in Vietnam War movies. They were well-trained and professional. They take notes! Not that the film will increase recruitment because what happens to them is traumatizing. And this was not an extraordinary mission. But that is one reason why the movie is good. It is realistic. There are two things that stand out. The hurry up and wait aspect of war is followed by the insanity of combat. The other realistic element of war that is depicted is what happens to the wounded. One of my biggest criticisms of war movies is the incredibly high percentage of deaths. Movies seldom show wounded men screaming for their mothers. And the wounds that cause that pain. You’ll be begging for the morphine to take effect.

               “Warfare” wears its microness on its sleeve. It is great in recreating one incident, but it gives nothing of the big picture. The audience is given no idea what is going on in Ramadi. It is not even clear what their mission is. It appears to be a search for a high value target. There is no mission briefing. There’s no intercutting to headquarters. It is certainly not an important mission. But most of warfare is routine. The cinematography does not rely on CGI, but there are some nifty drone shots to give an idea of where the reinforcements are coming from.

               “Warfare” is definitely worth the view. It may be the best very small unit movie that accurately depicts modern urban warfare, but it is not in a league with “Black Hawk Down”. Watch it and admire the effort of Ray Mendoza in bringing to the screen the story of one day in the life of his unit in an ugly war. How ugly? Try empathizing with the innocent family whose home was invaded by foreigners who liked the location.

GRADE  =  A-

 

NOW SHOWING: American Sniper

                “American Sniper” is based on the best seller by Chris Kyle which is the autobiography of the “most lethal sniper in U.S. Military History”.  Kyle served four tours in Iraq from 2003-2009 and had 160 confirmed kills.  The movie was directed by Clint Eastwood after Steven Spielberg considered doing it.  The Iraq scenes were filmed in Morocco and if you look carefully you will recognize a setting used in “Black Hawk Down”.  The movie is doing well at the box office and has received six Academy Award nominations:  Best Picture (but not director), Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing.  Bradley Cooper gained forty pounds for his role as Kyle by consuming 8,000 calories a day.

                The movie opens with the beefy hunk on sniper overlook from a roof top as a Marine patrol moves through the rubble of an Iraqi town.  He has to make a decision as a mother and her son approach the patrol with what looks like a Russian grenade.  Suddenly we flash back to Kyle as a child being preached to by his father.  Mr. Kyle tells his son there are three types of men:  the sheep, the wolves, and the sheep dogs.  Be a sheep dog and protect the sheep.  It takes a while for this to kick in as Kyle became a rodeo rider until a cuckolding and the embassy bombings in Africa causes him to enlist in the Navy SEALs.  SEAL training montage.  Their drill instructors are as taunt-creative as some of their best cinematic brethren.  Kyle meets his future wife Taya (Sienna Miller) in a bar and they would have lived happily ever after except for 9/11 which gives him the chance to do that sheep dog thing.  The movie now returns to the opening scene and we get to find out whether he shot the kid and mom.

                The rest of the film covers Kyle’s four tours and his awkward interludes at home.  Taya has two kids and would prefer he stay home and take care of his own sheep.  She is the classic whiny military wife who hates her country apparently.  Kyle is the classic war movie husband who lives by the war movie maxim:  bros before hoes.  In the Iraq scenes, we are made aware that Kyle is very good at his craft and soon his comrades are calling him “The Legend”.  Every white hat needs a black hat and Kyle gets his in an Iraqi sniper referred to as “Mustafa”.  Cue the sniper duel as every sniper movie fan knows that two is better than one.  A movie made by an arch-conservative also needs a hissable villain to bring a face to the ‘’savages”, as the Iraqi insurgents are called.  Kyle and his team of not Bradley Coopers are tasked to eliminate Al Zarkawi’s second in command “the Butcher”.  He may be second in command, but he is first in torturing.  The Butcher’s weapon of choice is a power drill!  (And all we did was water-boarding.)   The cat and mouse with the Butcher and the sniper duel coincide.  Along the way, a SEAL with little knowledge of war movie clichés talks about the ring he has bought for his impending proposal.  Guess who gets shot?  The movie builds to an Alamo reenactment in a sand storm.  “The fog of war” becomes “the sand storm of war”.  Credit Eastwood with a unique take on the “last stand” trope. 

                “American Sniper” is well made entertainment for the masses.  Eastwood uses his usual spare story-telling style and the movie has an Old School feel to it.  When the Kyle’s get frisky, they go in the bedroom and close the door behind them.  The movie is also unabashedly patriotic and supportive of the war in Iraq.  Eastwood inserts some support for religion (our religion) although he does not bludgeon us with it.  The cinematography is no frills with none of the hand held frenetics that mark most modern war films.  The sniper kills are visceral, but Eastwood does not indulge in sniper porn like most in the sniper subgenre.  We only see a few of Kyle’s 160 kills.  The movie was not made for 14 year old boys.  But unfortunately, it was made for main stream adults.  This means that it oversimplifies the themes for popular consumption.  Kyle chooses country over family, but eventually gets both.   Every return home develops the PTSD theme, but Kyle’s recovery is much too pat.  This does a disservice to the men who Kyle helped after he gave up the game.

                The movie is very well acted by the cast of Bradley Cooper.  I think there were some other actors in the movie.  There must have been.  To give you an idea of how Cooper dominates the movie and no one else is able to develop, there is an early scene that proposes that Kyle overlook an operation.  When the soldiers are going to go out of sight, Kyle (Cooper) disobeys orders and leads the ingress and personally interrogates the suspect and gets him to collaborate.  And by the way, why waste screen time on Kyle having a spotter to bond with?  The movie has virtually no scenes without Cooper in them.  I wonder why so many women are going see a war movie?

                The movie has given a big boost to the sales of the book.  This is partly I would think due to the fact that people like me come out of the theater wondering whether some of the key plot points are bull shit.  I plan to read the book and do a “History or Hollywood” post on it in the future, but for now I will say that it is fairly accurate.  Some of the things I thought were very likely Hollywood turned out to be artistic license.  For instance, the reason for his enlistment was different.  There was no boy involved in the Russian grenade incident.  There was a Butcher type figure in Iraq, but Kyle was not involved in a hunt for him.  Needless to say, there was no sniper duel.  I questioned the ability of a serviceman in Iraq to call his wife while on a mission and found that he actually did call his wife while waiting for targets and once was interrupted, resulting in her listening to the noises of a fire fight and it was a traumatic experience as depicted in the movie.  However, the call where he tells her he is coming home never occurred.  On a minor note (but symbolic of how hero movies work), the movie ups the insurgent bounty on Kyle to $180,000 compared to the actual unimpressive $20,000 for any sniper.  On the other hand, the movie does get some things right.  This is especially true of the marriage dynamics and the PTSD (but not the resolution).

                I may have come off too harsh on a war movie that is competently done and tells the story of a true American hero.  It advances its themes well and the combat scenes are among the best in recent war films.  They are edge of the seat and nicely unpredictable.  Cooper deserved the Oscar nomination and the movie should be titled “Bradley Cooper’s American Sniper”.  Considering the paucity of war movies, it is a good addition to the genre.  It makes a good companion to “Lone Survivor” and shows that there are some good movies being made about our two most recent wars.  Maybe some people will become aware that we did fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

GRADE  =  B