Warfare embeds audiences with a platoon of American Navy SEALs on a surveillance mission gone wrong in insurgent territory. A visceral, boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare and brotherhood, told like never before: in real time and based on the memory of the people who lived it.

Clocking in at a tightly wound 95 minutes and based entirely on Mendoza’s firsthand memories of a harrowing November 2006 mission during the Battle of Ramadi, Warfare is not your typical war movie. It’s a real-time descent into chaos and carnage, captured with such pinpoint authenticity that you’ll forget you’re watching fiction. This is combat cinema stripped down to muscle, blood, and nerve endings.

The premise is razor-sharp: a group of young Navy SEALs are tasked with sniper overwatch during one of the bloodiest phases of the Iraq War. But what begins as a routine operation spirals into an all-out siege, as a surge of insurgent forces overruns their position. With one of their own critically injured by a brutal IED attack, the unit must fight tooth and nail for survival while desperately trying to extract before it’s too late. The stakes couldn’t be higher, the tension couldn’t be thicker, and the action doesn’t let up for a second.

Mendoza and Garland’s decision to tell this story in real-time is a masterstroke. From the very first frame, the clock is ticking, and the weight of inevitability hangs over every moment. The calm before the storm is almost unbearable, and when the firefight ignites, the film explodes into full-tilt chaos. Bullets scream, RPGs crash, and the audience is plunged into a sonic and visual nightmare that never feels choreographed—it feels lived-in.

The camera rarely strays far from D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai’s Ray, the platoon’s radio man and the emotional heart of the story. His performance is a marvel of restraint and vulnerability, capturing the psychological cost of combat even as he follows protocol and keeps communication flowing. Woon-A-Tai doesn’t just act the part: he embodies it, grounding the entire film in lived emotional truth. Through his eyes, we witness the horror, the confusion, the courage, and the trauma of war in its most unvarnished form.

Backing him is an ensemble that absolutely brings it. Will Poulter’s stoic Erik, the commanding officer, delivers quiet authority that begins to crack under pressure. Charles Melton’s Jake is a revelation; brave, brash, and utterly fearless as he charges into the breach. Kit Connor’s Tommy, the fresh recruit, has his mettle tested in the worst possible way, and his transformation is gut-wrenching to behold. Taylor John Smith’s Frank provides the calm eye in the storm, a sniper with nerves of steel, while Joseph Quinn’s Sam is all intensity, bravado, and raw emotion. But it’s Cosmo Jarvis as SEAL sniper and Corpsman Elliott Miller who devastates. After suffering a horrendous IED attack, Miller becomes the film’s focal poin, not just as a wounded warrior, but as the soul Mendoza seeks to honor. Jarvis’ performance is painfully human, capturing both the physical agony and quiet heroism of a man doing everything to make it out alive on his brothers’ watch.

The technical aspects of Warfare are nothing short of masterful. Cinematographer David J. Thompson shoots with immersive fluidity, often going handheld to mimic the disorientation of battle. The sound design is where Warfare truly becomes transcendent. Rifle cracks echo like thunderclaps, radios hiss with desperation, and the ‘show of force’ airstrikes rumble through your bones. It’s a sonic assault that doesn’t just make you hear the battle—you feel it in your chest.

Garland’s DNA is all over the film’s aesthetic and structure—there’s a razor-sharp focus, an existential edge, and a deep respect for silence amid the chaos. But it’s Mendoza’s soul that powers this engine. This isn’t a Hollywoodified version of war. There are no slow-mo hero shots or orchestral swells here. This is grit, blood, bone, and brotherhood; raw and unfiltered. Mendoza isn’t trying to glorify the violence; he’s forcing us to witness it. He’s saying: “This is what happened. This is what we endured. This is what it cost.”

And it’s that sense of truth that makes Warfare such a gut punch. Every second feels earned. Every bullet feels real. Every sacrifice hits hard. What truly elevates Warfare, however, is its respect for the veteran community. This is their story. Their pain. Their endurance. Their brotherhood. Mendoza didn’t just make this for the screen; he made this for the men he served with, especially Elliott Miller. And that authenticity radiates through every frame. This is a story of valor without glamor, of chaos without clarity, of heroism without reward. It is, in every sense, a war film for the real world.

Warfare isn’t just one of the best war films of the decade; it’s one of the best films of the year. Period. It’s harrowing, unrelenting, and searingly authentic. Mendoza and Garland have created something rare: a war film that isn’t about victory or defeat, but about endurance, sacrifice, and truth. When the dust settles and the credits roll, you won’t be clapping. You’ll be sitting in stunned silence: shaken, haunted, and grateful for the story shared.

Image: A24

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Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance, a married couple (Julianne Moore, Charles Melton) buckle under the pressure when a Hollywood actress (Natalie Portman) meets them to do research for a film about their past.

Todd Haynes is a filmmaker who has always remained true to himself as a filmmaker, choosing to tell stories that stretch the canvas of a given narrative while always inspiring an emotional reaction from his audience. May December fits this mould exactly. Inspired by the scandalous life of Mary Kay Letourneau, May December tells the story of actress Elizabeth Berry (Portman), who gets drawn into the lives of Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), a woman who in 1992, was caught having sex with her son’s 12-year-old school friend Joe Yoo, and who despite her criminal conviction has built a life with Joe (Charles Melton), raising a family, and seeming to have a normal life. But there’s nothing normal about Gracie. Haynes builds out a bubbling psychodrama that soon becomes a battle of wills between the two women as Elizabeth falls deeper into Gracie’s torrid past life and the consequences that have followed her.

Haynes keeps his audiences on the edge of their seats the whole time with this one, and while there’s an everyday presence of normality, there’s always the crime and the trauma that follows from it. Haynes looks at the very idea of scandal in both the past and present and how there are some choices we can never run from. He also frames the story around the actress and subject, making it all the more intense of an experience, as while Elizabeth is looking for ‘truth’, when she finds it in Gracie, it’s far more scarring than she could have imagined. May December is all about the subtext and tone, and a plethora of emotions from love to happiness, jealousy to anger, and indifference to sincerity all play out, and your mind gets taken for a ride with this picture.

There’s a reason Julianne Moore is regarded as one of the best actresses working today, and the Academy Award winner gives a hell of a turn in her performance as Gracie Atherton-Yoo. Her performance is best described as two-faced, with Gracie appearing as the perfect presentation of the Southern hostess who has built a life for herself and her new family despite her crime and torrid past. But behind this clear side of her is an unpleasant nastiness, a spiteful contempt of those around her, and Moore gives you the impression that there’s much more to Grace than at mere face value. It’s a powerful and, at times, unsettling performance, and you never quite know where Moore is going to do with her performance.

Playing in direct opposition to Moore is Academy Award winner Natalie Portman, who matches her toe-to-toe with her performance as actress Elizabeth Berry, who is meeting with Gracie, Joe and their family for research into a new film about Gracie’s life and the scandal that erupted. Portman’s performance has an almost voyeuristic quality to it as she becomes dangerously close to Gracie and Joe, the ‘subjects’ of her performance, and as she desperately tries to understand what would lead Gracie to commit the act that she did. Like Moore’s own performance, there’s a tension to Portman’s character and her pursuit of Gracie as a character, and this tension does reach a boiling point that audiences won’t expect.

Praise must also be lavished on Charles Melton, a rising star on the Hollywood scene, which throws away his usual youthful bravado and presents a clear and fractured portrait of a man who seems lost in the world and with the choices he made. As the now 35-year-old Joe, whose own children with Gracie are about to graduate from high school, we see a man struggling with his life’s choices and an event that he can never run away from. It’s through Melton’s performance and the perspective of the characters around him that we see the events of his past with Gracie in a new life, and Haynes keeps things on a razor’s edge the entire time. All of it leads to a disturbing emotional reaction, and the psychological complexities of the story lead to a disquieting conclusion.

May December is a picture from a filmmaker who is in complete control of his craft, and its unexpected narrative and characters, plus the layered and complex performances of the film’s cast, will keep audiences on edge and close to shock right to the very end.

Image: Transmission Films

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