Inside ‘Warfare,’ a Star-Studded War Film Unlike Any Other

Warfare’s conceit means that the audience’s viewpoint remains intentionally narrow from beginning to end. You’ll hear references to “jihadists” and insurgents going after the main characters. You’ll see only glimpses of the terrorized Iraqi family whose home has been taken over, left to hide as it faces total destruction. Past depictions of the Iraq War, even those pitched explicitly as anti-war, have been criticized for their American-centric perspectives, and Warfare only leans in more along those lines. Did the filmmakers consider this as they developed the movie?

“It’s a completely legitimate question, and the answer to it goes to the reliance on memory,” Garland says. “The conclusion I would draw, having spoken to these people, is that the person you are talking to is someone who is remembering a moment where they had an intense tunnel vision…. It would come down to our refusal to get into editorializing. If this film has power, that is where the power is derived from, I think.”

When Poulter was first pitched Warfare, he hesitated. “The only thing that dampened my excitement was learning that it was a war film—only because I didn’t know what the agenda was, that it wouldn’t necessarily follow suit as far as how war has been depicted previously. I should have known better,” he says. “Alex described an intention that was characterized by wanting to achieve absolute authenticity, create something that felt entirely objective—a sort of unfictionalized, realistic re-creation of what happened that day.”

Indeed, if nothing else, Warfare feels real. This was certainly the case for the newborn cast—how the project required them to forge deep bonds that they hope carry them through the rest of their careers.

The film opens on a joyous note, of the SEALs watching the sexy music video for Eric Prydz’s “Call on Me.” This, like everything else in Warfare, was drawn from memory. As production approached its end, several of the actors got matching “Call on Me” tattoos to commemorate the experience—and also make a promise to each other. “Symbolizing that we can call on each other, really—it sounds a little corny and cheesy, but it’s referencing a few different things,” Woon-A-Tai says. “It goes pretty deep. We can call on each other, no matter after this project, anytime. We’re very close to each other and we’ll be there for each other.”