Does the Warfare pay homage to Elliot Miller? Here's what we know about the real-life Navy SEAL

There's realism in Ray Mendoza's and Alex Garland's Warfare. Part of it is the combat, which critics deem to be one of the most accurate depictions in a movie. But the true realism lies in how Mendoza tried to keep it raw, drawn from his memory of the battle, without trying to fill gaps fictionally.

It's about his friend, Elliot Miller, whom Cosmo Jarvis plays in the film. For Miller, there's no recollection of what happened when he was injured while on sniper duty. While the troop's mission is to keep surveillance on a residential area, it soon turns into a matter of survival for their soldiers, who have sustained injuries.

Joseph Quinn, who plays Petty Officer Sam, recently explained that their preparation for the film involved more than just regular training. The film was released US-wide yesterday and currently holds a 94% approval rating from critics, according to Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing.

Elliot Miller had to deal with a couple of blows during the mission

As shown in Warfare, Elliot Miller had to endure a couple of blows that would later leave his memory distorted and his body unable to carry him completely. First, a grenade injured him, and when he was being evacuated, an improvised explosive device (IED) added to that trauma.

The primary motivation to make the film comes from this very moment, as Ray Mendoza, the film’s co-director and one of the Navy SEALs present during the events, wanted to fill those gaps for Miller. There's a lot of military lingo in the film, which may go over the head of a usual civilian watching Warfare.

But that’s the deal: Mendoza’s film is meant for soldiers, specifically for Miller. During one of the early screenings, co-directors Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza chose the Hollywood American Legion Theater in Los Angeles, where members from the military community joined them.

While Elliot lost his leg during the event that happened in Ramadi, an Iraqi province, he also lost his ability to speak, as People notes. He now communicates via a text-to-speech program.

Warfare pulls everything from whatever remains of the source

As has become clear through several reports and conversations surrounding the film, it's a faded memory — everything we see is based on whatever information came from Mendoza and other soldiers the directors spoke to. Garland says in one interview:

"We had one rule, one rule above all other rules, which was nobody who wasn't there – which, of course, included me – was allowed to introduce anything into the story. The source of all information could only be either Ray or other people that were there."

Although Garland and Mendoza both share the director's chair, the former left much of this part to the latter. Which is also understandable, as Mendoza knows the ins and outs of the military operation, probably why critics see so much realism in the film.

It takes a lot to make a film like Warfare, especially considering that Mendoza, as he shared with People, keeps thinking he should have done more during the mission.

Warfare was made on a $20 million budget and has earned $1.1 million initially, according to The Numbers at the time of writing.