Warfare true story: How accurate is the Alex Garland Iraq war film?

"I'm not sure there's been as unfiltered a story, in as much as a story, an account, which is attempting to be as forensically accurate as this," he told RadioTimes.com during an exclusive interview. "It makes it unusual and gives it an unusual quality and an unusual tone.

"And it's an interesting thing, you know, not having many unfiltered accounts by veterans in cinema is strange, given how many war films there are. But [it's] very, very good to be standing alongside Ray as he did this and watch him do it."

So just how accurate is Warfare? Read on for everything you need to know – including exclusive insights from Mendoza and stars Kit Connor, Will Poulter and Cosmo Jarvis.

Is Warfare based on a true story?

Yes, the film tells the true story of a surveillance mission gone wrong in insurgent territory in Ramadi, Iraq, in November 2006 – in which co-director Ray Mendoza was directly involved.

The film unfolds in real time, and is based "on the memory of the people who lived it" – meaning that it is an attempt to tell the story of what happened as accurately as possible based on the perspectives of Mendoza and the other Navy SEALs depicted.

The real event saw a platoon of American Navy SEALs, along with two Iraqi scouts and two Marines, conducting a mission in a dangerous part of Iraq controlled by Al Qaeda forces.

Their goal was to surveil an urban residential area under the cover of darkness in order to ensure the safe passage of ground forces in the area on the following day.

However during the mission, Al Qaeda forces hurled a grenade through a sniper hole, injuring sniper Elliott Miller and another SEAL, before an IED explosion outside the house further injured Miller and officer Joe Hildebrand after they tried to evacuate.

These events and their aftermath are depicted with visceral intensity in Warfare, but the film opens with a scene which is a far cry from the horrific events that follow: showing the platoon the night before the mission as they dance along to Eric Prydz's 2004 hit Call on Me.

For Mendoza, it was vital to begin this way: "It was important because that's how we used to start our mission, a ritual," he explained to RadioTimes.com. "In 2006 we weren't able to stream entertainment, so it started out just as a form of entertainment – there was a lot of videos going on.

"It functions as a few things," he continued. "For me, it's a time stamp. I think when people hear that song, for some people, it's being in college and being part of fraternity, so on, so forth.

"But it also establishes this kind of this youth component... that we were just kind of these young kids going into this event that was about to change that."

Mendoza's first hand experience was vital in communicating to the cast of the film exactly what was going through the mind of the veterans during this event, and Cosmo Jarvis – who plays Elliott Miller in the film – found his advice especially helpful.

"I didn't meet Elliot until we were pretty far into the production," he explained. "I wasn't aware that he was gonna show up, but he did show up. [But] most of anything to do with Elliot came from Ray, and then other colleagues of Rays that came. And Ray was able to tell me a huge amount about Elliot, because they're very good friends.

"But not just Elliot in general as a character, but also, more specifically, Ray, in the context of this event in Ramadi in 2006 and and how they were together. So most of the information came from Ray, and before that I had some brief but very useful correspondence with Elliot's father."

Kit Connor also found Mendoza's input invaluable, explaining how "it was portraying probably one of the most important and sort of formative moments of his life."

He added: "He often says that that was the day that the kid in him died, like that was the day that he became a man. So, I'm sure it was a very emotional thing for him, but he also was able to approach it with a real level of objectivity.

"You know, that was kind of the intention of the film – to get rid of any bias and just any kind of subjectivity. It was all just the pursuit of truth and all through memory.

"Everything that happens in the film is memories of everyone who was there, and that's an incredibly hard rule to follow, but Alex and Ray both set themselves those rules and stuck by them from beginning to end.

"So it was really incredibly insightful as as actors, to be able to work with Ray in particular, and all of the guys who were there, who came to set, because they all were able to offer their own perspectives, especially with with the benefit of hindsight."

Other members of the cast were also able to speak to the people they were portraying, including Will Poulter, who explained how the veteran his character was based on "made himself available to me on a number of occasions in a number of really invaluable ways so I could do my best to accurately depict what he went through that day."

He continued: "It was amazing to have the contributions of the people who really lived this event to sort of ensure a certain level of accuracy with the recreation of that fateful afternoon, not least because I think it's important that veterans feel accurately represented in the film.

"But also so civilians get a realistic depiction of what a warfare environment looks like, as opposed to maybe something that resembles a few of the films in the pre existing catalog which maybe fall on the side of sort of glorification or romanticisation of these really traumatic and largely negative experiences."

Michael Gandolfini also benefited from about "half a dozen" meetings with the man who he played, who had an especially unique role in the traumatic event.

"There was a big thing that was discussed about, the fact that he wasn't a SEAL, he was supporting them through ANGLICO, part of the Navy," he explained. "And his mission there was basically to support with air. And when they lost air, it was sort of a feeling of, you know, like he wasn't of use. And so that was really stressful to him.

"And there was this very interesting insight that he bravely shared with me, where he sort of found the whole thing to he sort of kind of disassociated and sort of thought the whole thing was a training exercise.

"And so through those conversations, and then the incredible help from Ray and from a lot of the other men that were there just informed many of the brave things that he did that day, and sort of how they moved.

"So, yeah, all that protocol, all that information helped me create, not only physically the protocol, but the mentality that he was in."

Warfare is in UK cinemas from Friday 18th April.

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