Warfare

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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It must be like looking into a funhouse mirror to see someone else playing you in a movie — and even more disorienting when you’re the one directing the autobiographical pic.

That’s the experience Ray Mendoza faced when making “Warfare,” a military action film based on his experiences as a U.S. Navy SEAL during the Iraq War.

Mendoza cast 22-year-old D’Pharaoh Miskwaatez Loescher McKay Woon-A-Tai to play himself. Woon-A-Tai is a Canadian actor of Oji-Cree descent. He just wrapped work on FX’s “Reservation Dogs.” His breakout role as Bear Smallhill earned him two Critics Choice Award nominations for Best Actor in a Comedy Series.

The real Ray Mendoza is a former Navy SEAL with 16 years of service. He served as a member of SEAL Team 5 and Land Warfare Training Detachment. He was awarded a Silver Star “for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against the enemy while serving as Lead Communicator, Naval Special Warfare Task Unit-Ramadi, in direct support of Operation Iraqi Freedom on November 19, 2006.”

Mendoza was introduced to filmmaking while performing in “Act of Valor” and later served as a military advisor on Peter Berg’s “Lone Survivor.” He spent a lot of time as an advisor at different film locations – and says he learned how not to make a war movie.

Ray Mendoza and co-writer/director Alex Garland did the film to honor a friend, Elliott Miller, who sustained injuries from a grenade and roadside bomb attack while on tour during the Second Iraq War. “Elliott doesn’t remember, and he has a lot of questions about it,” says Mendoza.

“Warfare” is the second collaboration between Garland and Mendoza, who served as the military supervisor for Garland’s latest film, “Civil War.”

“Warfare” tells the story from the ground level, focusing on the moment-to-moment, real-time action of a Navy SEAL team during a sniper overwatch mission in Ramadi, Iraq.

The Second Iraq War ended in 2011. And while some movies – such as “Hurt Locker” and “American Sniper” – have represented those stories of veterans on the big screen, one military historian says that this war is often overlooked.

“There was a wave of movies after WWII, where they had WWII veterans on set telling film crews how to do it right, how to relate their experience correctly. And I think we need that for younger veterans now,” says David Silbey, a military historian. “We need movies that show on the ground experiences, and not Hollywood interpretations of them. Veterans like Mendoza could help do this.”

Starring an ensemble cast that includes D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai alongside Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, and Charles Melton, among others, “Warfare” follows a surveillance mission that goes wrong for a platoon of American Navy SEALs in insurgent-held territory in Iraq.

The film is currently screening at Tropic Cinema.

“Civilians don’t understand what being in combat is like,” Silbey said. “We need to see that messiness up close, without a larger narrative. It’s not so much about the heroism of the mission, or who is right or wrong, but the moment-to-moment experience of combat.”

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com