Dunkirk

In a nutshell, the Battle of Dunkirk was fought in Dunkirk France between May 26 to June 4, 1940.  Ther German army had started their blitzkrieg and pushed the combined French and British armies to the beaches of Dunkirk. Surrounded and on the brink of total defeat over 400,000 allies stared death or capture in the eyes. *Spoiler* In the end, thanks to an incredible civilian effort almost 85% of them would be evacuated to the British Isles.

The movie does what it can to capture the desolation and danger of the allies on that beach. Does it actually do that though? Well yes, in a way. See it uses a very interesting storytelling device. It breaks the saga into three different pieces. First dealt with the troops that were stranded on the beach. The second with the British pilots that were trying to keep the enemy aircraft off the beach. Lastly, the civilians that took part in the evacuation with their personal crafts.

Good device for telling the story and the director, Christopher Nolan, does what he can with his device. The thing is all three phases actually happen at different times. The men were on the beach for a week. The pilots over the beach for an hour. The civilians in their vessels for a day. As such, there are a lot of things happening at once, but many scenes are shown from all three “time angles”. Honestly, where it should have made for a compelling story, it just kind of mished and mashed into incoherency.

Did I like it? Not really. I made it through but don’t remember a lot. None of the cast really stuck out and yes, I know there were some big names there. It was just for a war movie it was sort of blah.

See it if you want. Would I recommend it? Eh. Maybe. was it historically accurate? Check here.