Warfare

I say this as a compliment and not as a criticism, I wanted it to end.

Warfare, by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza, is the most forceful and unflinching depiction of combat since Edward Berger’s 2023 Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front. It’s also one of the boldest and most formally daring.

While conventional entertainment value may not be the film’s strength, Garland and Mendoza have taken some impressive risks in throwing many of the rules of drama out the window.

You could condense the story into a sentence, but Garland and Mendoza have such a taut hold on the material, seconds take on the drama of epics.

Many will retain understandable uneasiness about the project, but few could deny the technical brilliance and dedication to an austere brief. An essential watch. Though maybe just the once.

What if you stripped away all the hooky plotting typical of military dramas, and just put an unembellished skirmish from a real war on-screen? Would it still work as cinema? The answer is yes.

The experience is heartbreaking, distressing, desolate, but not since Kathryn Bigelow's feature films (Zero Dark Thirty and especially The Hurt Locker) has there been an undertaking in the war genre like this. [Full review in Spanish]

Garland and Mendoza deliver an intense and immersive experience with stunning technical execution and gripping realism, all heightened by masterful editing and sound design. [Full Review in Spanish]

One of the most nightmarish depictions of modern warfare ever captured on screen...

Tough, direct and uncompromising, Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland's vision of 'Warfare' is more pessimistic than exciting. [Full Review in Spanish]