New War Movie Cuts People To The Bone, Sounds Like A Smashing Hit
"Warfare" is receiving some outstanding reviews ahead of its release.
Basic info from Rotten Tomatoes:
- Plot: Written and directed by Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland (Civil War, 28 Days Later), Warfare embeds audiences with a platoon of American Navy SEALs in the home of an Iraqi family, overwatching the movement of US forces through insurgent territory. A visceral, boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare, told like never before: in real time and based on the memory of the people who lived it.
- Cast: D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett and Taylor John Smith.
- Release date: April 11, 2025.
"Warfare" draws amazing reviews ahead of its release.
As OutKick readers know, I'm a big fan of war stories, and I'm sure many of you reading this feel the same way. Nothing gets the heart racing like a great story about combat. "Band of Brothers" is the greatest war story ever told, but there are also many other great ones released over the years.
Hype for "Warfare" went through the roof the moment the first trailer hit the web, and expectations are soaring ahead of its release this Friday.
The film currently holds a staggering 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes in the early reviews ahead of its release.
Below are some of the snippets shared on the site:
- Joey Magidson, Awards Radar: Warfare is an immersive and intense combat experience.
- Rebecca Murray, Showbiz Junkies: By eschewing every Hollywood war movie trope, Warfare catapults the genre into striking new territory.
- Rachel Wagner, rachelsreviews.net: It's so grueling to watch that one can't help but be exhausted from the experience, but I think chronicling what these soldiers went through has value
- Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews: Plunges us into an experience inconceivable to most, one which traumatizes thousands of young American troops, and does so with utter realism...The method does work viscerally, although narratively we are often left trying to fill gaps.
- Don Shanahan, Film Obsessive: The wide array of teamwork on display is downright inspiring to watch, with no glorious glows of assistive hero worship.
- Tom Meek, Cambridge Day: The sound editing and subjective POVs are adroitly effective and the ensemble gives gritty goes from top to bottom.
- Michael Ordoña, TheWrap: Perhaps the most effective way to convey that war is hell is to dump all the metaphors, story beats and shoehorned character development and just put the viewer in it, which this film accomplishes in a way very rarely seen in narrative cinema.
- Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics: Warfare doesn’t look, move, or sound like other war movies made in the Hollywood system, and it will for sure be mimicked by others hoping to recapture its intensity.
Do those reviews jack up your pulse? They should. "Warfare" is also a true story based on the experiences of director Ray Mendoza during his time in Iraq.
It's also clear that it's not going to be some mindless pro-war movie. It's going to be incredibly raw and ugly. Welcome to the reality of urban combat.
The brutality of urban combat is something nobody can understand until you've been there. Furthermore, the ambiguity in war is something that is impossible to understand until your finger has been on the trigger.
"Warfare" comes out this Friday, and I'm absolutely hoping it lives up to the hype. It's been a long time since we had a great war film, and it appears we have one lined up. I can't wait. Let me know what you think at David.Hookstead@outkick.com.