Dunkirk Review
Christopher Nolan has become a director that everybody pays attention to. Regardless of how you felt about his most recent efforts like Interstellar (2014) or Inception (2010) or the Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012), there has also been an attitude from certain moviegoers where if you don’t love the movies this guy makes, there’s something wrong with you, which I think is unfair; there’s no such thing as a perfect director, but some of these crazed people will tell you otherwise. So people like me who were mixed on Interstellar were under fire for having an opinion on the movie that wasn’t 100% positive, and I’m afraid, for the crazed fans’ sake, the same will be true for Dunkirk. The film is very tense and successfully puts you on edge for every one of its 106 minutes, but there’s things that I just didn’t like, and I think I need to go into those.
The story, based on true events, follows many members of the British armed forces: the army, the navy, and the air force. There are also civilian boats called in. So there are nearly 400,000 men trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, France, and now Churchill wants them off so they can join in the next battles. However, with the German armies coming in and air attacks almost constantly going on, the men are fish in a barrel as everybody tries to save themselves, and maybe some try to save their friends. I don’t know how far I can go into describing the plot before I get into spoiler territory, because the trailers kind of just give you a one-sided area where this happens, this happens, this happens, but that’s about it.
So as I mentioned before, the big strength of this movie is the execution from Nolan in the tense sequences. In particular, the scenes of Tom Hardy as one of the air force pilots really work and I root for the guy to shoot down all the German planes. Also good are the sequences where Mark Rylance is on screen. He is one of the civilians boaters called in to retrieve men from Dunkirk. His story and Hardy’s story are involving and engaging and make you care for their survival, and in extent, the survival of the men they’re saving. Also we see good work from Kenneth Branagh’s admiral character, those his scenes are pretty brief, he gets some of the wisest lines in the film. This is a war film, but there’s no real battle scenes. There’s bombing scenes, all of which are thrilling and get you tensed up, and Nolan uses this to his strengths. It’s more of a horror movie where the Germans with their bombs or snipers or soldiers or torpedoes are like slasher villains who can pop up at any moment and take lots of lives. I thought that was a great approach. Also good is the work from the crew: the cinematography is great, the film also has great work in the sound department. The sound editing and mixing are great, and it’s a good bet they’ll both nominated at the Oscars. Also the score by usual collaborator Hans Zimmer is good, especially when the clock ticking is used. It reminds you there’s only so much time left before these men will be stranded on the beaches and forced to surrender to German troops, and time is of the essence.
Now let’s get into what I didn’t like: the jumbled storyline. Nolan chooses to spend one moment in one area, then cut to somebody else, whose actions are happening at a separate time in a separate area. It just becomes difficult to tell where you are in time and space until about the last fifteen minutes where things start to line-up, somewhat. Plus if you really get into what’s happening with one character or one storyline, it’s difficult to get yanked out of it and back into another storyline that maybe you’re not invested in as much, if at all. Also the story of the three main soldiers on the beach are not as intriguing. In particular, the three men all look very similar, are wearing almost identical clothing, and I just couldn’t tell who everybody was, and therefore I couldn’t get as invested in them as the other characters I mentioned before. It’s kind of similar to how Ridley Scott made Black Hawk Down (2001), where its chaotic at times and impossible to figure out who the hell is doing whatever the hell it is they’re doing. Those type of war movies just aren’t for me. Also there’s a character who’s present with Mark Rylance who bumps into the three main soldiers at one point, but the dots are never connected as to how he started at one spot then ended up stranded and ended up with Rylance on his boat.
You know, come at me if you’re one of those crazed fanboys who shout and yell and cause a ruckus if anybody says something bad about a movie by this director. I’m not threatened by you. Dunkirk is a successful movie, and when it pops, it really pops and makes for one of the best films from this director yet. But when it doesn’t pop, it’s always a pretty film to look at and that has to count for something. If you like Nolan as a filmmaker, you’ll likely favor this, but if you’re a traditional war film enthusiast, you’ll probably be left cold by the bumbling storylines that jump around more than a sugar-high six year old at a friend’s birthday party where a trampoline in the backyard is calling their name. Still, I liked it, but I can’t say anything beyond that.
My rating: 8/10.
