Warfare (2025)

Plot of Warfare: A platoon of Navy SEALS is directed to set up a sniper location to assist in a military operation in Ramala, a hotbed of Al Qaeda resistance. Under cover of darkness they find a house in a quiet street and invade it, collecting the residents in a single room on the ground floor. The house is divided in two but they knock a wall down and set up the sniper, who views distant activities through his sniper scope. The rest sit about, and view events through a feed from a satellite.  The sniper sees activity, and the Iraqi interpreters hear shouts of jihad, then suddenly a grenade is thrown into the space containing the sniper.  They dive for cover, but Elliot the sniper is slightly wounded, so they call for a Bradley personnel carrier to evacuate him. Now there is incoming fire. The Bradley arrives, and the interpreters and some of the guys with the injured man are sent out. But an IED blows them up and the Bradley departs. The interpreters have been eviscerated and Elliot seriously injured as is their medic. They retreat into the house and call for reinforcements, but things do not look good.

Content: There is no smoking, drinking or drug taking but the guys are first seen enjoying a video of young women performing some sexualised exercise routines. Out in the dark they sneak about in Ramala, silently taking over the house, which is a concrete structure behind a wall, as are the other houses in the street.  The sniper is set up, viewing the distant houses through a small square hole in the front wall. The satellite view is black and white on a small screen. Once the grenade has blown up there is continuous gunfire chipping the concrete on the exterior of the house. After the IED the injured scream continuously until they find out where the morphine is. At various times Mendoza, on the radio, calls for ‘a show of  force’. This consists of a jet aircraft flying along the street breaking the sound barrier.  The effect is disorienting, even in the cinema.

A View: This is not really a film in any conventional sense. The events take place in real time and we are viewing them and being almost as distressed as those who were actually taking part, so it is an immersive experience. The noise is sometimes deafening. When they call for the Bradleys we hope they are going to arrive soon. The APCs have a small turret provided with what is apparently a 25mm chain gun. At one point they blow the top floor off the house. So this is an extraordinary film which does not ever, go into the reasons for the war or why the guys were there. Go and see it while it is in the cinema.

Fun Fact: Obviously they could not go to Ramala to make it, so they built the street on a disused airfield in Buckinghamshire.