Director: Christopher Nolan
Year Released: 2017
Rating: 2.0
The evacuation of over 300,000 Allied soldiers from Dunkirk, France during World War II is shown primarily from three points of view: private Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), RAF pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy) and sailor Dawson (Mark Rylance). The attention paid to surface-level details (forgoing CGI, casting tons of extras) and stylish elements (it's handsomely shot by Hoyte van Hoytema on film!) is astounding, but it's also pitifully empty from a human point-of-view: the 'characters' are merely figurines with no back story (did they cut out the entire first act?), reinforcing my regular complaint about Nolan that he's a master at visual construction and neglectful of everything else (cutting back and forth between the participants gets a little choppy as well). Picks up substantially near the end with Hardy shooting down the Krauts - the aerial coverage evokes memories of Wellman's Wings. This is simply evidence you can make a movie about a temporary defeat if you know, historically speaking, things work out in the end.
