War Is Hell—And The Mosquito Bowl Won’t Let Us Forget It

Entertainment Follow this section to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. FollowGo to your personalized feedWHY FOLLOW? Custom Feed: stories that matter most to you. Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Update your preferences in Account Settings Close movies Follow this tag to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. FollowGo to your personalized feedWHY FOLLOW? Custom Feed: stories that matter most to you. Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Update your preferences in Account Settings Close War Is Hell—And The Mosquito Bowl Won’t Let Us Forget It ADD TIME ON GOOGLE . FollowGo to your personalized feedWHY FOLLOW? Custom Feed: stories that matter most to you. Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Update your preferences in Account Settings Close Film Critic Oct 31, 2026 AM UTC Nicholas Galitzine as John McLaughry in The Mosquito Bowl Nicholas Galitzine as John McLaughry in The Mosquito BowlCourtesy of Netflix . FollowGo to your personalized feedWHY FOLLOW? Custom Feed: stories that matter most to you. Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Update your preferences in Account Settings Close Film Critic Oct 31, 2026 AM UTC 00:001.0x03:56 Narrated . When you’re a kid, young men going off to war look like men. When you’re a grown-up, you see that they’re really just boys. If The Mosquito Bowl gets close to any essential truth, it’s that one. This is director Peter Berg’s retelling of a true story involving young football stars who went off to fight in the Pacific during World War II, focusing on four real-life figures: Dave Schreiner and Bob Bauman (played ård) were teammates and close friends playing for the University of Wisconsin; Tony Butkovich (Ray Nicholson, son of Jack) was a fullback for Purdue; and John McLaughry (Nicholas Galitzine) had graduated from Brown University and been drafted into the NFL . As Berg presents it, all four of these men went off believing they could win the war the same way you win a football game, with strategy and athleticism, only to learn how far off the mark they were. The film’s title refers to a legendary football game between two Marine regiments at Guadalcanal, on Christmas Eve, 1944. A few months later, three of the four would be dead in Okinawa: Of the 65 men who played in the Mosquito Bowl, 15 were killed on the island.