2025, Alex Garland, Ray Mendoza (Civil War & directorial debut) -- Amazon
Warfare is actually what I would normally call a "small movie", i.e. a very condensed plot focused on a single event during the Iraq War in the early 2000s. A group of SEALs is tasked with providing "overwatch" for a joint operation with the Marines. This involves taking over a two-story house, which is occupied, and setting themselves up to monitor activities at a nearby market square. It is never clear as to why that house, nor whether any of the other houses in the neighbourhood are also occupied. Its not important to the movie, but you have to assume... yes? But no matter, they come in, strong-arm all the civilians together, setup defenses and radio in. And wait. And watch.
These are a bunch of young guys, likely not having seen any action before, all fresh faced, unwounded. They all have their assigned duties and work together like a well-oiled machine. I know its a cliche, and I am prone to using idioms, but the way the movie presents the team working together is very machine like -- lots of well-rehearsed activities supported by almost indecipherable radio jargon. They work well together, and support each other.
And then, almost immediately, someone throws a wrench into the machine, or more precisely, a grenade. The people they have been observing are also observing them, and begin a coordinated attack. They call it in, ask for support, as danger is very real and imminent, and things just go from bad to worse. The grenade injured their sniper, mildly but enough to request his evac. The Bradley tank that shows up to pick him up positions itself right over an IED and ... BOOM. The soldiers go from commands and coordinated actions to screaming panic, blood and chaos.
When it is over, and all the surviving soldiers are away in Bradleys, the locals emerge, both the home owners and the adversaries. They have driven away the Americans. They have hurt the Americans, who have come, accomplished little, to nothing, and they have run away. And one of the home occupants looks around at the devastation, the wreckage left after countless bullets, IEDs, tank rounds, and explosives, and the cry is uttered. Its not hard to understand this small action was a metaphor for the war.
The movie ends with the "usual" credit rolls, where we see the real soldiers compared to the actors that played them. Except all but one of the soldiers have their faces blurred. A comment on a lack of support from the very real soldiers they portrayed? The detritus of making an "anti-war" movie? There are no easy answers to that but this movie wasn't anymore anti-anything than a flag-waver. But for that one utterance, and the loud cries from wounded soldiers, this was an exciting, nerve-wracking portrayal of combat actions with tight performances, well-crafted scenes and an incredible sound landscape.
The movie stars a handful of recognizable faces including: Will Poulter (The Bear), D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs), Cosmo Jarvis (Shōgun), and Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things), well, and many more who are nigh unrecognizable under the grime, sand and gear of war.
No comments:
Post a Comment