Warfare is Alex Garland’s choice to make a stripped down, just the facts small scale modern war film. It’s not interesting in your backstories or politics. Just US soldiers doing a job with as much realism (as far as I could tell) as possible.

Set during the Iraq war, it’s a meat and potatoes depiction of a very small standoff that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t move the needle. It’s just soldiers defending their position against the locals.

In their attempt to go stripped down realism, the first half hour depicts the boredom of war. The waiting around for something to happen, reporting back to base, snipers monitoring the locals, identifying likely targets. It’s not exciting and it goes on for thirty minutes. I 100% appreciate the effort but watching soldiers sit around isn’t as exciting as you might think.

But that’s the gig. That’s the job of these soldiers and this movie. Eventually grenades are tossed and scary big American rifles are fired. And it remains believable. The calls each soldier makes, the injuries taken, the shots fired, etc. feel grounded.

We learn almost nothing about the soldiers and even less about the Iraqis. Some of the actors we can pick out… it’s Will Poulter Soldier who probably has a name but we’ll go with Poulter for purposes of this picture. Other half-recognized faces covered in dirt and military garb lurk about as well.

In some ways, the film feels too apolitical, just like Civil War (which didn’t work for me). But Warfare is so stripped down that it’ll probably annoy folks when we get nothing from the Iraqi position (including the poor family who live in the house the soldiers have taken). It’ll seem amoral and inconsiderate and I don’t disagree.

I completely understood the game the film was playing and appreciated the effort. But it took awhile for it to really catch me due to the attention to realism in the first act. Normally I like films that show the procedures of the Job… and eventually I came around to this picture.

Score: 85