Warfare - 95 minutes

Intense, traumatising and authentic, Warfare continues co-writer and co-director Alex Garland’s (28 Days Later, Ex Machina, Civil War) positive trajectory.

The film is based upon memories of an incident that occurred on 19th November, 2006.

That is when a platoon of American NAVY SEALs was on a surveillance mission in insurgent territory (controlled by Al Qaeda) in Ramadi, Iraq.

The goal of the SEALs, together with two Iraqi scouts and two Marines, was to slip into and keep a close eye on an urban residential area. They were to do so under the cover of darkness.

They were sent there to ensure the safe passage of ground forces in the area the following day.

The team was divided into three groups.

Op 1 was embedded on the second floor of an apartment building.

They included medic and snipper Elliott Miller (Cosmo Jarvis) and leading petty officer Joe Hildebrand, renamed Sam (Joseph Quinn) for the movie.

The communications officer is Ray Mendoza (D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai), while the

officer in charge of Op 1 is Erik (Will Poulter).

What was meant to be a dangerous, but straightforward operation, becomes anything but.

Almost two decades after Ramadi, Mendoza, then retired from the Navy, was working as a Hollywood stunt man, specialising in choreographing gunfight sequences.

Through a stunt coordinator, he met Alex Garland and became a consultant on his movie Civil War, designing battles scenes. That included the assault on the White House that closes that film.

The collaborators became friends and halfway through filming Civil War, Mendoza shared the Ramadi story with Garland.

Subsequently, Mendoza became Warfare’s co-writer and co-director.

The pair set rules for themselves not to embellish or dramatise events for effect – to keep it as real as possible. It was anything but to glorify war.

Warfare is incredibly tense from the get go, as we – the audience – are embedded with the soldiers, watching and waiting for something to happen.

Minutes tick by and from the sights of a long-necked machine gun, positioned behind a hole in an outside wall, we see the comings and goings in the building opposite.

In an adjacent room, where members of the platoon have set up, there is video surveillance and communication via walkie talkies. The American troops are in full battle dress.

Also in the house they have chosen as their base is the family they surprised while asleep in the middle of the night.

Huddled together and under guard, they are told to keep quiet and keep their hands where they can be seen.

Warfare is distinguished by its realistic approach to the subject. It doesn’t pull any punches. It is in your face for its entirety.

This is a visceral, boots on the ground story that takes you to the heart of combat in a way I haven’t seen before.

It is both shocking and terrifying. It is about young men doing a job, caught in the crosshairs.

As difficult, painful and disturbing as it is to watch, I admire its conceit. It is like we are there, alongside the soldiers, in the heat of battle.

The filmmakers are intent on showing us what it was like to be surrounded and trapped under fire.

The sights and sounds I witnessed – the discipline, the frustration, the fear, the screams – will long remain with me.

It is a remarkable movie, brilliantly conceived and executed, featuring a litany of outstanding performances.

While you need a strong constitution to sit through it (at times I felt like crying out “enough already” because my discomfort was palpable), it has the ring of truth in its DNA. That adds enormous gravitas.

It scores a 9 out of 10.