--- description: Filmmakers Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza recreate a harrowing wartime rescue in realtime, based on Mendoza's Iraq War experiences. title: Review: Warfare Manages to Be Both Brutal and Elegant image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb53b520c67319321/6998c5679fbc7ccbaed99f52/W_15173_R.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # _Warfare_ Manages to Be Both Brutal and Elegant  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Film Critic Apr 11, 2025 11:00 AM CUT  Taylor John Smith, Charles Melton, Alex Brockdorff in Warfare Taylor John Smith, Charles Melton, Alex Brockdorff in WarfareCourtesy of A24  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Film Critic Apr 11, 2025 11:00 AM CUT You don’t need to have fought in a war to make a great [war movie](https://time.com/5826591/accurate-world-war-ii-movies/ "undefined"): though neither [Steven Spielberg](https://time.com/archive/6733205/cinema-steven-spielberg-reel-war/ "undefined"), [Francis Ford Coppola](https://time.com/archive/6854540/cinema-the-making-of-a-quagmire/ "undefined"), nor [Stanley Kubrick](https://time.com/archive/6735879/cinema-kubricks-dead-but-his-projects-arent/ "undefined") did, the movies they made about the horrors of combat endure. But you could argue that the stakes are higher when a filmmaker who’s been to hell and back sets out to express the truth of his experience as, say, Sam Fuller did, using his own World War II diaries as the basis for his great, grim 1951 Korean War–set film _The Steel Helmet._ Members of the armed services who have seen combat and lived to tell about it often _don’t_ tell about it. Which makes the accounts of those who do mean that much more. Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza has teamed with [_Civil War_](https://time.com/6966037/civil-war-review/ "undefined")and[_Ex Machina_](https://time.com/3850774/alex-garland-ex-machina-ai/ "undefined")director [Alex Garland](https://time.com/5793864/devs-fx-hulu-alex-garland-review/ "undefined") to make _Warfare,_ which the two wrote and directed together. Mendoza was part of a team of Navy SEALs who, one day in November 2006, were sent into an apartment building in Ramadi province, Iraq, on a treacherous surveillance mission. Within just a few hours, [al-Qaeda](https://time.com/6203143/al-qaeda-leader-zawahiri-killed-taliban-treatment/ "undefined") forces had tossed a grenade in their midst, injuring two SEALs, one of them sniper and medic Elliott Miller (played in the movie by [Cosmo Jarvis](https://time.com/6692336/shogun-review-fx/ "undefined")). Miller was even more seriously wounded, along with another SEAL (Joseph Quinn), when an IED exploded outside the building as they were being evacuated. _Warfare_ tells the harrowing story of their rescue in real time—even though much of this movie is constructed from long, languorous takes, the film moves forward in tense fits and starts. The squeamish will need to steel themselves for _Warfare._ Though the camerawork is relatively discreet, the imagination all too easily fills in any gory details the eye can’t see.  Will Poulter in Warfare Courtesy of A24 But if a movie can be elegant and brutal at once, this one is: the dissipating smoke from the grenade hangs in the air, a pinkish-gold mist; polka dots of sunlight stream through a scattering of bullet holes in a door. Mendoza and others who took part in the mission (played by a group of fine young actors including [D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai](https://time.com/6097570/reservation-dogs-suicide-indigenous-communities/ "undefined"), [Charles Melton](https://time.com/6565196/oscar-nominations-2024-snubs-surprises/ "undefined"), and [Will Poulter](https://time.com/6991369/the-bear-season-3-review/ "undefined")) pieced the story together from memories of that day. Miller doesn’t remember the day’s events at all, and Mendoza has said that he wanted the movie to be “a living snapshot” for him, a way of honoring all that he lived through but can’t recall. Most war films strive to establish their characters as individuals. _Warfare_ is different. Though we become intimately familiar with each young face, the men’s names and specific jobs are blurrier. The idea is that if one of them goes down, the rest feel it acutely, all connected by a single circuit. As for those of us who know about the experience of those in the military only from movies and television, sometimes after a lifetime of viewing: the older you get, the younger these characters look. These are the people—men and women—we send to war, and the U.S. doesn’t have the greatest history of caring for them upon their return. It’s painful to look at the young actors’ faces in _Warfare_ and think of the real-life men they’re portraying, now well into middle age. In a landscape that appears to be tilting toward slashed benefits for veterans and understaffed facilities, how well will they be cared for going forward? This is what you get for going to hell and back. There’s no such thing as a hero’s welcome. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7273848/warfare-review-alex-garland/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7273848/warfare-review-alex-garland/"},"headline":"Warfare Manages to Be Both Brutal and Elegant","datePublished":"2025-04-11T11:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:51:23.746Z","description":"Filmmakers Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza recreate a harrowing wartime rescue in realtime, based on Mendoza's Iraq War experiences.","url":"https://time.com/7273848/warfare-review-alex-garland/","keywords":["movies","review","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb53b520c67319321/6998c5679fbc7ccbaed99f52/W_15173_R.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stephanie Zacharek","jobTitle":"Film Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb53b520c67319321/6998c5679fbc7ccbaed99f52/W_15173_R.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Warfare","caption":"Warfare","creditText":"Courtesy of A24","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7273848/warfare-review-alex-garland/","name":"Warfare Manages to Be Both Brutal and Elegant"}}]}] ```