Diagonaldi Very well executed

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Catherina If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

luscher-3 As many have mentioned, fine performances by all involved. A very underrated movie in my opinion. The story telling ability of these old movies is lost on many modern films. As far as Dunkirk, many of the themes in this movie were "borrowed" in the new Dunkirk movie.

zardoz-13 Traditional armchair generals should know Christopher Nolan's World War II epic "Dunkirk" has little to do with the battle of Dunkirk. You won't see German Panzer Corps careening through Belgium and plowing into France. In fact, the only Germans in "Dunkirk" are either flying aircraft (so cannot see them) or show up as infantry from unknown units. Instead, "Dunkirk" confines itself strictly to the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Forces (B.E.F.) in three segments: one on land covering one week, one on sea covering one day, and one in the air covering one hour. Of course, much, much more occurred at Dunkirk than just the wholesale evacuation. Presumably, the "Dark Knight" filmmaker didn't want to overwhelm himself with an ambitious battle extravaganza. "Dunkirk" was produced for $100-million, and likely millions went to publicity. So, if you're looking for something like "The Longest Day" (1962), "Battle of the Bulge" (1965), "Anzio" (1968), "A Bridge Too Far" (1977), "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), and "Hacksaw Ridge" (2016), prepare to be disappointed. "Dunkirk" doesn't recreate historic battlefield combat, not even the infamous Wormhoudt Massacre. Adolf Hitler's Waffen-SS soldiers slaughtered as many as 80 British soldiers along with some French POWs. The cold-hearted SS crowded these prisoners into a stable, tossed in stick-grenades, and then finished them off with bursts of machine gun fire. Something like this might have given "Dunkirk" greater dramatic gravity. Instead, we see neither German tanks nor troops storming through France and Belgium. This 107-minute movie boils down to a series of survival episodes that occurred at Dunkirk. Notably, the RAF preferred to confine their resources largely to the island in preparation for the inevitable Battle of Britain, later made into the exemplary film "Battle of Britain" (1969). Along with the RAF, the courageous Royal Navy and the Small Boat Owners emerge as the heroes who rescued the BEF waiting anxiously on the beach."Dunkirk" opens with several British infantrymen sauntering down a road inside the Dunkirk city limits as the Luftwaffe showers them with propaganda leaflets. No sooner have they had a moment to glance at these surrender summons than gunfire erupts from an unknown source. As they scramble for cover, unseen shooters kill all them except Tommy (newcomer Fiona Whitehead), who crosses a street and comes under fire then from French troops. They wave him toward their lines, and later he wanders onto the beaches. As far as he can see, queues of troops are standing on the beach awaiting transport. "Spectre" lenser Hoyte Van Hoytema's atmospheric cinematography shows these soldiers in their brown uniforms standing like ducks in neat, orderly rows on white beaches. These scenes resemble something out of "Lawrence of Arabia" in all their sprawling immensity. Van Hoytema's cinematography adds to the spectacle of the event. Not long afterward, as Tommy tours the beach, screaming Stuka dive-bombers plunge from the skies, seeding the beaches with bombs. The worst death in "Dunkirk" occurs when one of these bombs blast a British soldier to smithereens as he shoots vainly at a Stuka. Tommy meets another soldier under mysterious circumstances on the beach. Might he be a German saboteur? Without challenging him about his strange behavior, Tommy pitches in to help him. They become fast friends who desperately break the rules and the lines so they can get aboard a transport. Cheekily, they seize a stretcher case awaiting transport and dash to an embarkation station. They reach the ship at the last minute, but they are sent packing because they weren't Red Cross personnel. Nolan has these two heading off to find passage elsewhere by any means whatever. Their exploits turn into shenanigans as they deal with one setback after another, even after they stow aboard a ship.Although the RAF lost fewer planes than the Luftwaffe: 145 to 156, "Dunkirk" shows no more than six Spitfire fighters cruising the English Channel in search of prey. Again, budgetary concerns may explain the aircraft shortages. Also, Nolan doesn't go for too much CGI, so he resorted to cardboard cutouts of troops on the beach. Nevertheless, we get one hour's worth of the RAF giving the Luftwaffe utter Hell. Predictably, one pilot perishes in a crash, another ditches in the sea, but the third is far more fortunate. RAF pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy of "Mad Max: Fury Road") riddles repeatedly the Luftwaffe in "Dunkirk's" most exciting scenes. Christopher Nolan does a decent job of staging several tense scenes of soldiers confronting catastrophe. Unfortunately, apart from Tom Hardy's RAF pilot, Kenneth Blangah's Naval officer (rarely endangered), Mark Rylance as an intrepid civilian sailor, and Cillian Murphy as a shell-shocked soldier, celebrity movie stars of prominence are far and few between in this epic. Indeed, most of the actors are unknown, except perhaps for "One-Direction" singer Harry Styles. Suspense works best when a character is conspicuous enough either as an actor or as a character for us to care about. Everybody is virtually a nobody in "Dunkirk." Meantime, evoking sympathy for soldiers so desperate that they take refuge in a beached ship and become targets seems like the province of a horror chiller. Quoting the cliché, they die like fish in a barrel during target practice. Indeed, two of the soldiers trapped in the boat are the same duo who have tried to bluff their way board a Red Cross ship. Oscar winning actor Mark Rylance has one of the better roles as a small boat owner who has already lost a son in the RAF. The episode with the shell-shocked soldier involving the inconsequential treatment of a civilian teen is the least savory scene. Nevertheless, Rylance's character is never in jeopardy. Often wearing an aviator's oxygen mask, Tom Hardy looks like the villainous Bane from Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises," but he comes closest to being a blood and guts hero. Ultimately, despite its heartfelt tribute to British resiliency in the face of annihilation, "Dunkirk" qualifies as a fair war movie.

tomgillespie2002 Surprisingly, precious few films exist depicting the events of Operation Dynamo during World War II. The emergency evacuation of thousands of British, French and Belgian soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk while the Nazis closed in around them was described as a "colossal military blunder" by Winston Churchill and could have ended the war there and then. However, the assistance of hundreds of civilians who sailed from the south of England in a small armada of speedboats, yachts and fishing boats to rescue their battered allies provided a united front in what was then dubbed the 'Phoney War' and an astonishing tale of bravery to boot.Leslie Norman's Dunkirk does not shy away from the buffoonery of high command which led to Allied troops being pushed further and further back until they were surrounded from every angle, but also explores themes of heroism in the face of invasion. Telling two parallel stories, we witness the events leading up to Dunkirk from the front-line, where inexperienced corporal 'Tubby' Binns (John Mills) finds himself in suddenly in charge after the death of his superior and separated from the bulk of his company in hostile territory. From the Home Front, cynical journalist Charles Foreman (Bernard Lee) is attempting to snap his fellow countrymen out of their laid-back state to pay attention to a war that is creeping on their doorstep. Charles is met by people who agree with his concerns, but also those who are blissfully unaware of his country's dyer situation. In particular, local businessman Holden (Richard Attenborough) is making himself a tidy profit from the Phoney War and laps up the propaganda played over the radio. Attenborough's coward is the film's most intriguing plot-line and certainly the most complex character on show. Although he has relatively little screen-time compared to Mills and Lee, its Holden's reaction to the horror on the beach which subsequently changes his entire outlook that lingers in the mind once the film is over.Mills' lovable Tubby looks like the more conventional hero, wise- cracking and back-slapping his men, but as the situation worsens his ability to command is questioned as leaves one of his men to die and fails to inspire his troops to move when told. Mills gets the bulk of the screen-time, and while his journey to the beaches provide some technically impressive set-pieces, there's an unevenness to the juxtaposition of the intertwining tales when they really deserve equal billing. Tubby's escapades means that it takes a long time to get the evacuation, but when it does, the sights of hundreds of soldiers wading out into the ocean in the hope of rescue and the horror exploding around them still holds up today. It's a moving and beautifully filmed final half hour that is worth the price of admission alone.

bkoganbing My favorite story of heroism in the 20th century happens to be the evacuation of the bulk of the British army from the beaches at Dunkirk. There was the United Kingdom which if they had not been rescued probably would have had to sue for peace with Nazi Germany despite Mr. Churchill's intentions to fight. The United Kingdom would have had nothing to fight with and World War II would have been over on the western front.The Dunkirk story was touched on briefly in the American cinema in William Wyler's Mrs. Miniver. Walter Pidgeon who owned a small craft was asked to meet some friends at a local pub. Turns out they wanted him and his boat to cross the English channel and evacuate troops. It's one of the great scenes from that film boats feeding in from every tributary of Thames and the flotilla sailing out to sea. But it's only part of Mrs. Miniver.The story is told from the perspective of the high command, but also from the ordinary tommy and from the civilians who helped. John Mills is a corporal who leads his small squad out of certain capture from the Germans. Richard Attenborough is a small craft owner like Walter Pidgeon who is a timid and frightened man, but summons up enough courage to help his country out in its darkest hour. Bernard Lee is a reporter who goes along with Attenborough to cover the story. All three meet on the beach at Dunkirk and go to the fates that await them and their country.My favorite in the film is Attenborough, he plays his role with real conviction, representing as it were, the courage and determination of a people united to repel an evil. Make no mistake about it, with the Royal Navy up over its head in other commitments, those people like Richard Attenborough in saving John Mills and others like him saved civilization itself. In many ways civilization owes them more than even the men of the RAF because they weren't in the armed forces, but civilians fighting for their homes and families as we did not see the like before or since. Dunkirk is one of the best war films ever to come from the United Kingdom and a worthy tribute to the small boat owners who saved their army and their nation.