A useless film, without any message. A documented event suggesting the uselessness and ineffectiveness of the U.S. Army.

Even more powerful than I expected. The juxtaposition of silence with an absolutely maddening cacophony of sound is an amazing feat, and left me breathless at times (and once virtually jumping out of my seat). I want to watch it again for the detail, because the visceral experience had me fully absorbed the first time through.

Warfare is simple in story; but it is that very simplicity that so effectively emphasizes what this film is trying to communicate. The acting is exceptional, the sound design is intense, and the experience is powerful.

I went into Warfare with very high expectations considering the extremely talented cast of upcoming actors and the fact that it was written (in part) by Alex Garland. War movies tend to not move the needle very much for me, and I've started to feel that a lot of them are sanitized in their political context. With this type of talent for a movie set during the Iraq war, I was expecting a lot more thematic nuance that felt more than just a standard American propaganda movie. Make no mistake, Warfare is well-made. The sound design is excellent, and despite its opening act being a bit slow, it definitely builds tension effectively. There is a lot of military jargon thrown around, and the chaos of the singular event is palpable. The problem is that the movie doesn't do much beyond that. The characters are just various representations of shell-shock, and outside of their fight to survival, they aren't noteworthy at all. I sometimes struggled to differentiate some of the characters outside of some slight behavioral quirks. The movie frustratingly does not even elaborate on why the characters get stuck in this situation, and it glosses over any sort of reckoning with what is actually happening. There are moments where I thought the movie was somewhat self-aware of how certain people were treated during this event, but it barely spends a passing glance on them. There is no attempt at tackling some of the more difficult questions at the center of this movie, and it really is only about its title, Warfare. It is a sanitized, binary view of the conflict with very little thematic, character, or plot depth. This is standard for war movies, but I was expecting a lot more considering the people and studio behind the movie. If you just want a tense depiction of the fighting in war, it's an okay watch. If you want anything even remotely more, you'll be sorely disappointed.

After really enjoying Alex Garland's _Civil War_, I found this to be a little disappointing in comparison. I recognize that's mostly a symptom of the type of movie it is - a small scale true story versus a large scale fictional one - but at the end of the day there just wasn't enough story for me to get super invested. There's not enough dialogue or interaction to really get to know most of the characters in a meaningful way and even at just 96 minutes I thought things felt a bit stretched. On the technical side, while the production and sound design were generally great, the visual/audio affects used to replicate shell shock and disorientation, though well done, ended up feeling overused and dragging on too long. With all that said, the movie was far from bad - plenty of interesting details and overall an effective depiction of modern warfare (can 20 years ago still be referred to as modern?).