“The horror…” We can only imagine what Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now had experienced through his unforgettable monologue. Directors Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza want to give you a front row seat to it. Based on Mendoza’s own memories, and the memories of his Navy Seal squad in 2006, of a botched mission in Iraq, Warfare at face value could come off as the same military propoganda/America “oo-rah!” to some. Even François Truffaut famously said, “there is no such thing as an anti-war movie” because it is impossible to not glorify the portrayal of war through the lens of filmmaking. Perhaps the closest to ever do it right was 1985’s Come and See, or Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, but Garland and Mendoza are aware of this. Mendoza’s personal eye-witness perspective is key in treading the careful line between condemning the act of war while honoring those who served. Military depictions in film have almost always focused on the heroic nature of the brave, Mendoza wants to emphasize the inhumane fear.

Much like a full-length version of the opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, Garland and Mendoza do not pull back on the gore and violence. Bombs explode, body parts tear apart, blood flows. None of this is filmed in a cinematic or gratuitous way, it is all just happening as it would and as it did. Every familiar young actor is portraying a real Navy Seal involved in this conflict. Charles Melton, Joseph Quinn, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Will Poulter, Taylor John Smith, Michael Gandolfini, Finn Bennett, and Noah Centineo, among others, are all smartly plugged into this project as the conduits of these men, with D’Pharoah Woon-a-Tai as Mendoza himself, the communicator/JTC of his team. With this ensemble adding their own personalities to the mix, they do a tremendous job in allowing us to know these characters despite almost no characterization whatsoever. With little help from outside forces who are just treating them as bodies for ammunition, each performer is tasked with emoting each person’s specific brush with their own mortality and their mental psych draining under pressure as they work together to get out alive as many of their team as possible (as well as securing their weapons from enemy’s reach).

Yes, this film does not have a traditional plot. It is filmed and constructed moreso like a reenactment documentary, all performed in a real-time 90 minutes. This experimental style allows Garland to imagine this through cinema with the loudest and most immersive sound design heard in a movie in years, creating almost a simulation-type feeling sitting in the theater. Despite most of the film taking place in the presence of the American squad, the film finds enough little moments to portray the Iraqi civilians, also victim to the atrocities. Our main team is even hiding out in an occupied home, unjustly keeping the family tenants under hostage and the film does not forget to emphasize how even after the gunfire stops and the team moves on, this family’s life is still destroyed for no reason.

You won’t see another war movie begin with the music video to “Call on Me” by Eric Prydz being watched on a laptop by a rowdy, horny group of young barely-adult men. This tone setting is a brilliant depiction of how the military industry gasses up these Call of Duty-obsessed, Mt. Dew drinking teens who think they’ll go out on the lines as gun-blazing heroes before plunging them into the least desirable position possible. Garland smartly builds incredibly quiet tension for the first half hour before letting the literal bombs explode. None of it creating an enjoyable experience, nor should it. As non-service audience members may realize, this is nothing compared to actually fighting in combat, but it may be the closest feeling we’ve gotten to understanding it through film.

The only downside to this “simulation” type approach is being traumatized by the horrors of war, but never once feeling like you’ve just seen a film. Its emotional impact is purely based in the brutality of the mission rather than the emotional journeys of the characters. It still makes for a memorable experience that must be seen in a theater, if only just once.