Cinema has long had a fascination with war. From the rah-rah flag waving of the 40s and 50s to a more serious turn in the 1970s, combat pictures have always been a hot commodity. After the one-two punch of Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter and Francis Ford Coppola’s realistic (but fantastical) Apocalypse Now, war films got serious. Scenes of young men in battle became more human. The stark realism found in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, and Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line wanted to show the hell of war and the mental effects of those who fought it. Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s stunning new film, Warfare, joins these classics as one of the most intensely powerful portrayals of combat in cinema history.

Written and directed by Mendoza and Garland (based on the former’s real experience) the story is pieced together from different interviews with those who survived the attack portrayed in this film. As the title card reads, “This film uses only their memories.” This is to be the masterstroke of the film’s screenplay. In the madness of a firefight, not everyone will have the same recollection of events, but all will share the same encounter. By using the shared experiences to tell one story, perhaps it can bring an audience closer to an emotional understanding of what these men went through and the pain they will carry with them forever.

Warfare reconstructs the real life 2006 operation in Ramadi, Iraq that involved Mendoza’s Navy SEAL team. The tactical unit takes over a family’s home in the middle of the night on a mission to surveil an Al Qaeda-controlled neighborhood. Their orders are to ensure the safe passage for oncoming American ground forces. Almost immediately, the insurgents are aware of the SEALs’ position and soon the attack begins. The SEALs find themselves in a battle for their lives as the enemy’s numbers become stronger and the attacks more intense.

All these men can do is fight to keep one another alive and wait for the oncoming platoons to rescue them.

Before the battle ensues, the screenplay is smart to stay away from giving each character a backstory. One won’t hear, “When I get home, I’m getting married.” or “My wife just had my baby. I can’t wait to meet him when I get back.” This kind of dialogue is manipulative and hints at who will live and who will die. There is no artifice in the storytelling here. Mendoza and Garland don’t need to give stereotypical personalities to their subjects to achieve audience sympathy, nor is there a call for a structured narrative.

The directors’ goal is to present the reality of the raw and life-altering experience Mendoza and the soldiers in his squad endured.

Warfare seeks to erase the disconnect that comes by watching combat through news footage or clips found on the internet. The events of this day actually happened. They happened to Ray Mendoza and his fellow warriors and he wants us to experience the hellish reality of moment to moment survival by creating a work of unflinching reality. This is a movie, but for 95 terse minutes, the audience will be living what really happened.

Co-directing, Mendoza and Garland strip away setup and levity to immerse viewers into the brutality of war. The confined technicality of the filmmaking produces an intensity that never lets up. As the soldiers watch through the windows as the insurgents gather outside, the audience will be left breathless. At any moment, the attack could begin. Soon the bullets, grenades, smoke bombs, and IADs start flying and there isn’t a moment of safety. There never was.

From a filmmaking perspective, the precision in which some of the Al-Qaeda fighters (and the American soldiers) hit their marks achieves the same levels of tension found when watching the sniper sequence in Stanley Kubrick’s classic war classic, Full Metal Jacket. One is almost in awe of how men on either side can focus through the mayhem that surrounds them, if only for a second.

David J. Thompson’s incredible camerawork intensifies every dangerous second, becoming our eyes and ears. We don’t just watch, Thompson’s boots on the ground cinematography put us directly into “the shit”.

The terrific cast includes some of today’s best young actors. Kit Connor, Joseph Quinn, Will Poulter, Michael Gandolfini, and Charles Melton, all give naturalistically powerhouse performances. D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (so excellent on the FX series Reservation Dogs) is the film’s version of Mendoza. As with all of the other actors, his work is as profoundly truthful as the film itself.

Many of the actors met with their counterparts and learned all they needed to create their realistic personalities on film. Character arcs come without design. What happens to the soldiers on screen happened to the real men. The story need not be dramatized.

Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland have crafted a precisely detailed masterwork of tension and emotion. Their film honors those who lost their lives on that day and stands as tribute to all who fought to stay alive. The bigger picture is how this work stands as a testament to the bravery of the men and women who serve in combat.

For those of us who never served, it is impossible to imagine what the men and women who protect us have been through. While this picture is a visceral and emotional triumph, we will never know the ghosts of war that shadow our combat veterans. All we can do is help them however we can and stand by them with an open heart.

Ray Mendoza, the men that fought beside him, and all veterans need to know they are not alone. They don’t expect us to know their pain. They just want us to understand.

Warfare is filmmaking at its purest.

Warfare

Written & Directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland

Starring D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Kit Connor, Joseph Quinn, Will Poulter, Charles Melton, Michael Gandolfini

R, 95 Minutes, A24