When Jesse Plemons' unnamed soldier asked ‘what kind of American are you?' in the trailer for Civil War, it promised an enticing examination of a fractured America. When the film rolled out, that line became painfully literal. If it had been a Coen brothers film, it would have made a fine joke, but here the question reveals a reluctance to engage with the core conflict at the heart of Civil War. Now the Iraq war is given the A24 stamp of approval in Garland's Warfare, a ‘visceral boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare', seemingly geared towards a COD generation.
With a platoon of American Navy SEALs made up of ‘hey I kind of like that guy' actors including Charles Melton and Cosmo Jarvis alongside Brits Will Poulter and Joseph Quinn, this coalition of the willing find themselves in trouble when an IED causes havoc during a medical extraction for injured team member Elliot (Jarvis). But it's prior to this where the film really hums. After a rather on-the-nose opening featuring Eric Prydz's Call On Me, the team find themselves holed up in an Iraqi family's house, surveilling the local area and its population. The decision to work with the real men involved, including Civil War's military advisor Ray Mendoza (played here by D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), lends an authenticity to the military jargon that rattles around the house as the team notice an increase in ‘peeking and probing', the signs of an imminent attack. Where Civil War failed to convey its grander ideas of a divided nation, Warfare at least manages to package its intensity into a stifling microclimate, reflective of a conflict that seems beyond the grasp of those on the ground.
When that attack does arrive, it causes a relatively minor injury that sets a disastrous chain of events in motion. It's a promising first half in which the American military's vulnerabilities are readily exposed by a savvy enemy. Much has been made of Mendoza's involvement in the film, billed alongside Garland as co-director, and prospective audiences have been consistently told that this is what ‘war looks like'. With the enemy as faceless as Xbox NPCs, the combat itself is based on the memories of those Navy SEALs involved. But the eschewing of any character-building prevents this from being the band-of-brothers tale it thinks it is, and precludes any emotional resonance with the clips and photos bizarrely and brazenly tacked onto the end.
The film's second half is paint-by-numbers Hollywood warfare with nearby SEAL teams converging on our FUBAR situation like the boats sent to Dunkirk. It's rather telling that Garland's marquee visual flourishes are the low-flying jets tasked with a ‘show of force' – a swooping aerial manoeuvre designed to provide very temporary cover and perhaps most importantly, intimidate. This feels like a movie made for a very specific audience. So niche in fact, that it would be better suited to a private screening for the veterans' close family and friends. A wide release has rarely felt so unnecessary.
For a film so intent on capturing the realities of modern warfare – though the start of the Iraq war was over twenty years ago?– there seems very little interest in asking anything remotely meaningful. Who is Warfare for and why does it exist? Nobody seems to know, nor care. The film strives for authenticity and not much else. Destined to be endlessly discussed in terms of its anti or pro war credentials, any discourse may miss just how completely pointless it actually is. To quote the counterculture, I said, war[fare], huh (good God, y'all) What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
Warfare is in cinemas from 18 April
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