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Posted in: A24, Movies | Tagged: a24, alex garland, film, Warfare
Warfare Co-Director on Making Sure the Film Felt Unique
The co-director of A24's new movie Warfare reveals what he hoped to accomplish through the film's storytelling approach.
Article Summary
- Warfare by A24 redefines the war genre with a focus on authenticity and real-time storytelling.
- Directors Garland and Mendoza shun typical war tropes for raw, unglamorous depictions of conflict.
- Set in the Iraq War, it vividly captures a SEAL team's doomed surveillance mission from 2006.
- No score or backstories; the film relies on firsthand accounts for a stark portrayal of war.
In a cinematic landscape often saturated with stylized depictions of conflict, the 2025 A24 film Warfare does its best to emerge as a stark, unflinching counterpoint. Co-directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Civil War) and former U.S. Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza, this British-American war film also hopes to redefine the genre by prioritizing authenticity over dramatization.
Set during the Iraq War, Warfare recreates a surveillance operation gone catastrophically wrong on November 19, 2006, in the wake of the Battle of Ramadi. The film follows a platoon of Navy SEALs tasked with monitoring insurgent activity from a commandeered Iraqi home. Initially, the mission unfolds with tense monotony—soldiers wait, watch, and communicate in clipped jargon, their focus narrowed to scopes and radio chatter. The absence of exposition mirrors their isolation; the audience, like the SEALs, is given little context beyond the immediate. When insurgents detect their presence, chaos erupts. A grenade, an IED explosion, and relentless enemy fire shatter the fragile stalemate, plunging the team into a desperate fight for survival. The narrative, unfolding in real time, captures the disorientation, physical toll, and raw terror of combat—morphine fumbles, improvised medical aid, and screams of agony.
The filmmakers' commitment to veracity is evident throughout their story. "The idea was to avoid the usual cinematic representations of war," Garland tells The Playlist. "For me, the main thing was to spend as much time listening to Ray and listening to his colleagues…and just be primarily receptive to that as opposed to other sorts of influences." This sentiment heavily impacted Warfare's stripped-down approach—no score, no sentimental backstories, no political framing. Instead, it leans on firsthand accounts, meticulously cross-referenced to ensure fidelity.
The Official Cast of A24's Warfare
Warfare boasts a robust ensemble of rising stars, each tasked with embodying real soldiers without the crutch of traditional character arcs. D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs) anchors the film as Mendoza, conveying quiet resolve and concussive disorientation. Will Poulter (The Revenant) plays Captain Erik, the operation's rattled commander, while Cosmo Jarvis (Shōgun) delivers a gut-wrenching turn as Elliott Miller, whose injuries haunt the story. Joseph Quinn (A Quiet Place: Day One), Kit Connor (Heartstopper), Charles Melton (May December), Noah Centineo (The Recruit), Michael Gandolfini (The Many Saints of Newark), Finn Bennett (True Detective), and others—including Taylor John Smith, Adain Bradley, Evan Holtzman, and Henrique Zaga—round out the platoon.
Warfare hit theaters on April 11, 2025.
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