It's been a long wait for fans of Alamo Drafthouse and film in general, but movies finally return to downtown Dallas with the soft opening of Alamo's Cedars location on Friday, February 12. That date should prove successful for Alamo, as it will see the opening of two films — Deadpool and Zoolander 2 — that fit right in with the company ethos, as well as a third, How to Be Single, that is this year's designated Valentine's Day date movie.
The new theater, located at 1005 S. Lamar St., features seven auditoriums, all with 4K digital projection with 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound. Every seat at this location is a luxury recliner, and front-row seats feature larger chairs with a deeper recline and footrest.
Other amenities include a 30-foot outdoor screen, four private karaoke rooms, and an upstairs bar with two patios, each with amazing views of downtown Dallas.
You can actually get in to see the new movie theater sooner than February 12, as Alamo open its doors for "Role Play" dates earlier that week, February 8-11. Along with a chance to see some of the biggest movies of 2015 like Jurassic World and Mad Max: Fury Road again, you'll get in for just $1 and get 50 percent off your food and non-alcoholic beverages as the waitstaff learns the tricks of the trade.
The soft opening dates also bring some discounts: 30 percent off food and beverage February 12-14; 15 percent off food and beverage February 15-21; and a free order of cookies February 22-March 8. The theater officially opens on Wednesday, March 9.
The Alamo Drafthouse in Dallas goes from vision to reality on Friday, February 12.
Rendering courtesy of Alamo Drafthouse DFW
The Alamo Drafthouse in Dallas goes from vision to reality on Friday, February 12.
At this point in movie history, there are precious few ways to make a war film feel original. Every major American war, including the most recent ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been covered, and the “war is hell” idea has been featured in too many films to count. So for a film like the new Warfare to stand out, it needs to do something that other war films have not.
To say that it accomplishes that goal is an understatement. Set in Iraq in 2006, it follows a platoon of soldiers tasked with helping to gain control of the city of Ramadi, a hotbed of activity in the war at that time. But this is not a story of good triumphing over evil, nor one that tries to examine exactly what the U.S. military was trying to accomplish in the war. Instead, it’s just a story of a group of young men trying to do the job they’re asked to do, and what happens to them during that mission.
It presents as fact, with no judgment either way, that one squad of the platoon overtakes the home of two Iraqi families as part of the mission. An ensuing firefight pins the soldiers down with almost no way to escape, and subsequent rescue attempts by other squads result in multiple casualties. The bulk of the film focuses on how the shell-shocked and injured soldiers react to the situation in which they find themselves.
Written and directed by Alex Garland (Civil War) and Ray Mendoza, the film is based on the memories of Mendoza and his fellow soldiers of this exact situation they experienced. As such, the film does not attempt to add extra drama or even emphasize one character over another. In fact, the first 30-40 minutes of the film are relatively boring, as the squad relays information about their position to other, unseen people.
The men in the platoon are not exactly interchangeable with each other, but the way the film is structured, they’re essentially equals. It’s easy to tell who the leaders are, but those giving orders are not treated as more important to the film than those carrying them out. This is especially true when things go to hell, as each person goes from trying to fight to trying to survive, with their training coming into play in different ways.
The situation depicted in the film is somewhat mundane - it’s not some big battle or a turning point in the war - but the intensity with which Garland and Mendoza stage it makes it enormously impactful. They put the audience right in the thick of the carnage, and the horrific injuries inflicted on some of the men, as well as the seemingly never-ending screams of pain emanating from them, can be difficult to take.
The cast features a few actors who are starting to make names for themselves (Will Poulter, Joseph Quinn, Noah Centineo, Charles Melton, Michael Gandolfini), others who’ve had smaller impacts (D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai, Cosmo Jarvis, Evan Holtzman), and plenty of others who have yet to get their big breaks. Each of them does their job extremely well, which in this case means that they complement each other’s performances, with none of them overshadowing the others.
Warfare is not an overtly political film, and yet the politics of war are inextricable from the story it tells. Neither anti-war nor pro-war, it simply lays out the facts of one individual mission in a larger conflict, and each viewer will likely take away something different from the experience of watching it.
