# Dunkirk (2017)



## Brian G Turner (Aug 6, 2016)

First teaser trailer released for Christopher Nolan's latest project - Dunkirk:


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## Susan Boulton (Aug 6, 2016)

It has to do a lot to be better this one.

Dunkirk (1958) - IMDb


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## Keith Taylor (Aug 16, 2016)

The teaser looks pretty good. This is gonna be one of those movies I build up in my head over the next year, then I'll inevitably be disappointed


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## Brian G Turner (Dec 14, 2016)

A proper trailer is now up:


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## zlogdan (Dec 14, 2016)

Thanks I am what is usually described as a self-professed Christopher/Jonathan Nolan fanboy 

Seriously, Nolan is by far my favorite director.


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## TWErvin2 (Dec 14, 2016)

An interesting topic for a film. Could be very interesting (more than just action) but human emotion and cost.


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## Nick B (Dec 14, 2016)

My great uncle died at Dunkirk. I would like to watch this,  I think.


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## Brian G Turner (May 5, 2017)

Trailer 2:


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## Brian G Turner (May 5, 2017)

And on a related note, this also looks interesting for different reasons:


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## HareBrain (May 5, 2017)

A cynic writes: everything looks fantastic in the latest Dunkirk trailer, but I can't help wondering where the twists and turns of the story are going to come from. Army evacuates from beach under attack from aircraft, and some make it off, some don't -- that's about it. You don't have much of a strategy element, but neither does it seem strongly focused on the stories of a few minor players. It seems to me to follow the rules of the modern blockbuster in that the drama is all in the explosions.


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## Frost Giant (May 17, 2017)

The preview looked good, I'll be curious to see what Nolan does with a war picture.


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## WaylanderToo (Jul 22, 2017)

watch it - it is magnificent! The only thing I did not like was the time-line which jumped around a little. Other than that 10/10


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## AlexH (Sep 30, 2017)

I was disappointed in this. It looks great, but I didn't find the characters engaging at all. The acting was good, but I guess they weren't given enough screen time to develop a connection. There was no need for the incessant music all the way through either - the planes and gunfire were epic enough for the horrors of war, and I found the music combined with that off-putting.


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## mosaix (Sep 30, 2017)

My father was at Dunkirk. He told me about an incident while they were waiting for evacuation that was depicted in the film just as he described it. 

Gave me a funny feeling.


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## Venusian Broon (Sep 30, 2017)

I thought this was a great movie. It took a bold move to tell the story of Dunkirk from the perspective of the ordinary men rather than some overblown history that laid out the facts a'la _A Bridge Too Far_ or _The Battle of Britain _(Don't get me wrong, ABtF and TBfB are great too, but I don't think it's Nolen's style to copy an old template for a war film.) This is more what fighting is like for everyone - it's not all Call of Duty or Band of Brothers set pieces. It reminds me of what a veteran said on _The World at War_ - something along the lines of 'Fighting is nothing like what you have in the movies, you can be sitting about for days not seeing the enemy, not hearing a shot being fired and then being told that the battle is lost and you have to retreat.'

It's difficult to say you can enjoy or love a film like this. It gripped me, made me think and made a lasting impression.

I was on edge almost all the film - I found myself gripping the chair and being mesmerised by the visuals, the music, the characters and drama.

No problems with the timesplitting employed - I'm not much of a 'linear man' when it comes to novels & films and like experimentation like this. It meant that there were great moments, say when Tom Hardy's pilot flies over his downed wingman and he sees a 'wave that he is okay', but we find to be completely overturned when we actually find out what was happening to the pilot. A great use of Subjectivity!

Of course the apex of the movie, in some senses, was ridiculous: Tom Hardy's 'hampered' Spitfire taking out a diving Stuka. But I'll allow that moment of fantasy. (In fact there was a bit of discussion amongst those who are obsessed with these planes that the dogfights were all 'wrong' but that is, I think, because they actually used real aircraft to film everything, more-or-less, and they just couldn't afford to actually make the planes manoeuvre how the actual pilots of the time flew their aircraft. There would have been a much bigger risk of crashing these planes and destroying a real bit of history. However I'm not obsessed by this topic and did not notice anything in the dogfights that pulled me out of the movie!)

I'll allow it because I was redeemed by the fantastic final moments for Hardy's airman as he lands and sets his plane on fire and he remains, as the sun sets, and the Germans (for the first time appearing as men!) capture him. It was a great scene.

A great film.


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## The Judge (Sep 30, 2017)

I enjoyed it, but I can't help thinking it could have been better.  I also didn't like the jumping about in time, and kept getting confused eg when the three Spitfires fly over Mark Rylance's boat seen from his POV, I thought it was a new flight not the ones we'd already seen, and the chap they pulled from the torpedoed ship, we later see in uniform getting onto the ship.  I think.  As I say, I got confused, which rather pulled me out of the whole film, rather than allowing me to be immersed in it.    

I agree with Alex about the characters not being engaging, at least as far as the three soldiers on the beach were concerned (I could never work out which was which, so that didn't help!) and it wouldn't have worried me if all three of them had copped it.  Mark Rylance was superb, as always, and the older boy with him was fine, but I could have done without the other lad and his subplot which added nothing as far as I was concerned -- that people die in meaningless ways even in wartime was far better done in _Their Finest_.

The film was a lot less emotionally engaging than I'd expected.  I'd seen the trailers, and that staccato-typed tagline of "When 400,000 men couldn't get home, home came for them" had me welling up every time, but the only occasions during the film that approached it was firstly when Kenneth Branagh (also v good) sees the little ships for the first time and the Elgar swells, and secondly at the end when the elderly blind man says "Well done" and the solder says something like "All we did was survive" and the answer is "That's enough". The rest of it, nada.  Our cinema had a booklet compiled by a local history group in connection with some of the little ships that sailed from the Southampton area, telling the men's stories in their own words, and I was in floods of tears reading those -- they were far more affecting and horrific than any of the stuff on the screen.

The scenes with the planes were very good.  Though I thought the wingman-waving scene from Tom Hardy's POV happened after we know the truth of the incident -- someone needs to watch the film again and check!  The reason I think it was that way round is because it was the only occasion when the time jumps actually added something to the film, because of the dramatic irony.  So if I've got it wrong, then nothing about the "5 days, 2 days, 1 hour" or whatever it was worked for me.  I agree the final shooting down of the Stuka was more than a little far-fetched, but I also forgave it for the brilliance -- if implausibility -- of that final flight along the beach and landing.  I didn't see it myself, but my sister says there was a documentary about Dunkirk and in it an old soldier confirmed the men on the beaches were blazing angry at the RAF -- who were largely unseen, as they were fighting miles away to hold up the German advance -- so much so that downed pilots were actually prevented from boarding the evacuation ships by way of punishment.  The old boy was in tears when he found out the truth. 

The one bit of the film I really didn't like was the "Fight them on the beaches" speech at the end.  I can fully understand why they wouldn't want someone impersonating Churchill, or have it as a gravelly voice-over, but the terribly flat way it was read out just killed it stone dead.  Rylance or Branagh could have given it meaning without any element of jingoism, or the words could just have been typed onto the screen. It was so downplayed, I wondered why they bothered including it.


mosaix -- if it isn't too personal or upsetting, can I ask which incident it was that your dad told you about?   (Very few war memories have been passed on from my family.  My dad was in the marines -- he'd signed up pre-war, not HO -- but he never spoke of any action in which his ships were involved, only of funny incidents or time spent ashore, whether because he never saw any action or he simply couldn't talk of it, I'm not sure.  My uncle -- afraid of heights so couldn't climb a ladder, so he volunteered for the paratroops! -- was badly injured at Arnhem, and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp, but I never thought to ask him about his experiences until it was too late and he'd developed dementia.  I understand another uncle suffered PTSD post-war but I never met him, so I've no idea what horrors he'd seen/undergone.)


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## mosaix (Sep 30, 2017)

TJ he was on that 'jetty' that had been dive bombed. Some soldiers had to balance on the remaining wooden spars to get over the gap as per the film. 

By the time his turn came the spars had collapsed (don't think this was shown) and he had to run and jump across. Lots of them took it in turn to do this and the waiting was intolerable. They knew not of all of them would escape. He was one of the lucky ones.


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## Nick B (Sep 30, 2017)

I havn't seen it yet,  but very much want to.  A friend of mine said it did bring tears as he'd been told many stories from his relatives that were there.  My great Uncle Wink,  nicknamed Wink,  as he had a squint,  died in what were known as the safe houses,  basically bunkers defending the beach,  trying to keep the Germans off the beach during the evacuation.  He was grenaded in a safehouse. He was 20 years old.

I was pretty annoyed when someone described the film as full of 'toxic masculinity'.  That was war,  it isn't a fairytale,  it was real men,  fighting against a real enemy that really would have filled the world with toxic evil.


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## The Judge (Sep 30, 2017)

Toxic masculinity?!  I don't know what film that person saw, but it's not the one I watched. 

The men on the beaches are scared, raging angry, depressed and demoralised.  There are cowards and bullies shown, men suffering shell-shock, and men who are would-be (and possibly have-been) murderers.  There's aggression, certainly, but it arises from fear.  There are moments of heroism, if that's thought to be toxic and/or masculine, but of the quiet understated kind that was absolutely of the time eg Mark Rylance's character, or the Tom Hardy pilot -- there's a job to be done and they have to get on and do it without making a fuss. 


NB I have heard second hand of a review that states -- with apparent indignation and/or by way of a warning advisory -- that there are no people of colour shown in the film and only a couple of women, which rather makes one despair of historical understanding.  (I think there was in fact a contingent of Indian troops at Dunkirk, but the film wasn't attempting to show the whole 350-400,000 on the beaches, only a representation of the great majority, who would inevitably have been white.)


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## Nick B (Sep 30, 2017)

Id look for the article,  but want to start a political/opinions discussion.  It just annoyed me.  Yeah,  I read the same review,  and thought 'yeah,  but you know...  History and all that.  This isn't a made up story. ' The past is a different country,  they do things differently there. 
Is Dunkirk out on DVD now then?


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## The Judge (Sep 30, 2017)

I've not seen it out on DVD, but I've not been looking for it.  I don't know how good it would look on a small screen though.  They were certainly making a big thing of shooting it on some kind of special large film stock and saying it was best to see it in a cinema that could cope with it (yep, really showing my cinematic expertise here), not that I've any idea what difference that would make.


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## The Ace (Sep 30, 2017)

I enjoyed it, and in some ways, it brought one aspect to the fore that isn't generally known [Spoiler below]

In the space of an hour. the RAF lost three Spitfires, with one pilot killed, one rescued, and one taken prisoner.  To the troops on the beach, the Luftwaffe seemed to be attacking them unopposed, while in actual fact, combat took place inland, and many German aircraft didn't even reach the beaches.  The RAF suffered very heavy losses at this time (177 aircraft, 106 of them fighters), including many vital Spitfires (Dunkirk was the first time the Luftwaffe met the Spitfire, and it came as a nasty shock.


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## HareBrain (Oct 1, 2017)

mosaix said:


> My father was at Dunkirk. He told me about an incident while they were waiting for evacuation that was depicted in the film just as he described it.



This reminded me of something. Mine was also at Dunkirk (he was 51 when I was born), and when we were talking to him about his life ten years ago, he told us he'd fallen asleep near the mole, and had woken up to find all his comrades gone. I haven't seem the film yet, but I heard or read somewhere that this same thing happened to one of the characters in the film. Is that so?


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## AlexH (Oct 2, 2017)

Nick B said:


> Is Dunkirk out on DVD now then?


It's still on at the cinema.


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## Susan Boulton (Oct 2, 2017)

AlexH said:


> It's still on at the cinema.



Yep and no sign of it coming out in Bluy Ray or DVD, most things are up for pre-order on Amazon within a couple of weeks of release. I think this one is going to be early next year, if not nearly 12 months, before it is available.

And yes, I have seen it and enjoyed it.


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## The Judge (Oct 2, 2017)

HareBrain said:


> This reminded me of something. Mine was also at Dunkirk (he was 51 when I was born), and when we were talking to him about his life ten years ago, he told us he'd fallen asleep near the mole, and had woken up to find all his comrades gone. I haven't seem the film yet, but I heard or read somewhere that this same thing happened to one of the characters in the film. Is that so?


I can't recall seeing anything of the kind, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't happen to the three men the story focuses on as representing the ordinary soldiers.


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## Caledfwlch (Oct 3, 2017)

The Ace said:


> I enjoyed it, and in some ways, it brought one aspect to the fore that isn't generally known [Spoiler below]
> 
> In the space of an hour. the RAF lost three Spitfires, with one pilot killed, one rescued, and one taken prisoner.  To the troops on the beach, the Luftwaffe seemed to be attacking them unopposed, while in actual fact, combat took place inland, and many German aircraft didn't even reach the beaches.  The RAF suffered very heavy losses at this time (177 aircraft, 106 of them fighters), including many vital Spitfires (Dunkirk was the first time the Luftwaffe met the Spitfire, and it came as a nasty shock.



I saw a documentary about this not sure it is a spoiler given its world history, but I shall spoiler it.

It was awful how much credibility the RAF lost with the Army that day, purely based on a misunderstanding - it's not just that the RAF were actually further inland doing a fantastic job of keeping the Luftwaffe and other forces away from Dunkirk, they were apparantly battling the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk itself, it's just that the dogfights were taking place really high up, so the Tommies on the beach simply didn't see them.

It's surprising there's only a couple of films about Dunkirk - it's one of those historical events that reads more like a boys own adventure from an old comic, or kids novel, yet really happened - hundreds of civilians sailing out to rescue our boys from France, absolutely amazing.


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## Susan Boulton (Oct 3, 2017)

Caledfwlch said:


> It's surprising there's only a couple of films about Dunkirk - it's one of those historical events that reads more like a boys own adventure from an old comic, or kids novel, yet really happened - hundreds of civilians sailing out to rescue our boys from France, absolutely amazing.



If you get a chance, watch the film, "Their Finest." Very, "Ealing Studios", in its tone and themes, yet it captures a lot about the time it is set in, and it is a film about filming a film about Dunkirk... And the heroine is Welsh


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## The Judge (Oct 3, 2017)

Yes, well worth a look.  Her accent wavers a bit, and I'd have trimmed some of the more self-indulgent scenes, but a cleverly-put together film with some very good performances and tremendous lines, and the Dunkirk-film-within-the-film is itself surprisingly moving.


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## Caledfwlch (Oct 4, 2017)

Their finest looks interesting! Big fan of Bill Nighy too

It's a little frustrating though, that the predominantly London based Media don't appear to understand that there are several Welsh Accents, and that a person from Bangor in Gwynedd say sounds dramatically different to a person from Cardiff, but always in film and tv especially when its a non Welsh person putting on the accent, it is always, a Valleys accent from South Wales, with the occasional diversion to the Swansea accent.

Even when a character is supposed to be from, or the film/show is even allegedly set in North or Mid Wales, everyone has valleys accents. To get an idea of what a Gog (North Walian) sounds like, look on youtube for interviews with Rhys Ifans, it is radically different to the Southern Accents, and the Mid Wales accents too are different to both again. And in Pembrokeshire to the South, around Haverfordwest they actually speak with a West Country English Accent!


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## AlexH (Oct 4, 2017)

Caledfwlch said:


> Their finest looks interesting! Big fan of Bill Nighy too
> 
> It's a little frustrating though, that the predominantly London based Media don't appear to understand that there are several Welsh Accents, and that a person from Bangor in Gwynedd say sounds dramatically different to a person from Cardiff, but always in film and tv especially when its a non Welsh person putting on the accent, it is always, a Valleys accent from South Wales, with the occasional diversion to the Swansea accent.
> 
> Even when a character is supposed to be from, or the film/show is even allegedly set in North or Mid Wales, everyone has valleys accents. To get an idea of what a Gog (North Walian) sounds like, look on youtube for interviews with Rhys Ifans, it is radically different to the Southern Accents, and the Mid Wales accents too are different to both again. And in Pembrokeshire to the South, around Haverfordwest they actually speak with a West Country English Accent!


Have you seen Locke? I'm wondering where that Welsh accent could be placed (if anywhere). It sounds Hungarian at times! It's an excellent film though - starring Tom Hardy, also of Dunkirk.


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## Caledfwlch (Oct 4, 2017)

AlexH said:


> Have you seen Locke? I'm wondering where that Welsh accent could be placed (if anywhere). It sounds Hungarian at times! It's an excellent film though - starring Tom Hardy, also of Dunkirk.



i haven't seen it, but just watched some clips. Dear God, Mr Hardy is normally a decent actor, but his "Welsh" accent - what on earth? 
It's very vaguely Valleys, but it keeps jumping around, and it doesn't feel authentic, not just the unusual take on a Welsh accent, but because he isn't speaking with the rhythm or dialect of a Welsh person, especially a Valleys one. 

A good example of how we speak English differently is one that used to drive my ex Fiance, and everyone I knew whilst living up in Yorkshire with her crazy, as for some reason the English mindset cannot seem to deal with the concept.
She, for example, if I stayed up after she had gone off to bed would shout "Babes, when you coming up? you said 5 mins!"
My Reply "I'l be there Now in a Minute, Cariad"
her always without fail shouting even louder "Seriously Babes, WTF does now in a minute even mean ffs??? it makes no sense, your weird!"

Apparantly only a Welsh Brain can understand the concept of now in a minute.


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## AlexH (Oct 4, 2017)

Caledfwlch said:


> i haven't seen it, but just watched some clips. Dear God, Mr Hardy is normally a decent actor, but his "Welsh" accent - what on earth?
> It's very vaguely Valleys, but it keeps jumping around, and it doesn't feel authentic, not just the unusual take on a Welsh accent, but because he isn't speaking with the rhythm or dialect of a Welsh person, especially a Valleys one.


It took me a while to figure out he was even meant to be Welsh - at first I thought he was playing someone Central or Eastern Europe. He is superb in the film though, I wouldn't say his accent is a slight on his acting. I struggled to understand him in The Revenant at times, and another film - I can't think which. At least I could tell what he was saying in Locke.

There are a fair few colloquialisms where I live. Like "I aren't" instead of "I'm not" - that makes perfect sense, but always annoys one of my friends who isn't from around here.


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## WaylanderToo (Oct 11, 2017)

Susan Boulton said:


> If you get a chance, watch the film, "Their Finest." Very, *"Ealing Studios"*, in its tone and themes, yet it captures a lot about the time it is set in, and it is a film about filming a film about Dunkirk... And the heroine is Welsh



Agreed - watched this on the flight home from my hols yesterday. Loved it


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## Radrook (Oct 18, 2017)

HareBrain said:


> A cynic writes: everything looks fantastic in the latest Dunkirk trailer, but I can't help wondering where the twists and turns of the story are going to come from. Army evacuates from beach under attack from aircraft, and some make it off, some don't -- that's about it. You don't have much of a strategy element, but neither does it seem strongly focused on the stories of a few minor players. It seems to me to follow the rules of the modern blockbuster in that the drama is all in the explosions.


Maybe they will delve on the reasons why Hitler hesitated ad infuse more drama into it that way.


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## Caledfwlch (Oct 19, 2017)

It might be better to have far less focus on the lads fighting to escape, and instead focus on the brave ordinary men and women who sailed their boats across the channel to rescue "our lads" The "Little Ships" did an amazing thing, all 850 of them, sailing into a War Zone.


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## Venusian Broon (Oct 19, 2017)

Caledfwlch said:


> It might be better to have far less focus on the lads fighting to escape, and instead focus on the brave ordinary men and women who sailed their boats across the channel to rescue "our lads" The "Little Ships" did an amazing thing, all 850 of them, sailing into a War Zone.



You must have been watching a different film then - a whole thread of the story was for the experiences of a civilian skipper and crew.

And yes of course, there were a few civilians that bravely took it upon themselves to join in as the character played by Mark Rylance portrayed, but the myth that a lot of civilians took part has been debunked by the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships themselves. By far the vast majority of the 850 little ships (at least 94% from memory, can't find the source) were commissioned and crewed by Royal Navy personal.

"The Mrs. Miniver story of owners jumping into their Little Ships and rushing off to Dunkirk is a myth. Very few owners took their own vessels, apart from fishermen and one or two others. The whole Operation was very carefully co-ordinated and records exist of most of the Little Ships and other larger vessels that went to Dunkirk." From History of The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships | Association of Dunkirk Little Ships.

In this respect the films focus on the three armed services contributions, as well as also making the civilian element prominent, seems fitting to the level of sacrifices made by everyone.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 2, 2018)

Just watched Dunkirk and really enjoyed it. The way tension was maintained throughout was really well done. And the structure of following 3 different storylines taking place over 3 different time frames - converging, meeting, then moving away - was really, really clever.

Good to see a war film that focuses on the human story. Even the kids sat through it, which was positive. 

EDIT: PS, I didn't notice any CGI! For once in a film.


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## The Judge (Jan 2, 2018)

Brian G Turner said:


> I didn't notice any CGI! For once in a film.


Possibly because they used very little of it.  Apparently, he went out of his way to re-use old cinematic techniques, eg painting on glass for the rows of soldiers waiting to leave the beach (find a trailer of _The Finest_ and you'll see it's more effective than it sounds). I think he also used cardboard models for soldiers and vehicles in the distance -- I do recall reading that he had bits of metal (?foil?) attached to them, which caught the light, giving the impression of movement which CGI doesn't always do.


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## MontyCircus (Jan 22, 2018)

Here's my Criticker mini-review:

"_Billed as a "thrilling" war epic. This has no thrills and is shorter than the rom-com I just saw. It's practically a silent film (I hate them), with the soundtrack being the hum of plane engines and the crashing of waves. There are no characters, I'm not sure anyone in the film is named. No German faces are seen. In the film credits I assume everyone is named "Earnest Brit #1", "Earnest Brit #2". There is no humour. The lines that do exist are all garbled and unintelligible. Disappointment."_

And to make matters even worse, historians say it greatly exaggerates the extent of the whole "average Joes with sailboat rescued all the troops" angle...which is the entire point of the film.  So for me, it neither entertained nor informed.  Double fail.


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## WaylanderToo (Jan 22, 2018)

I have to say that this really does seem to be a marmite film in as much as I've heard very few people say "...meh, it's ok..."


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