Rating of
3.5/4
When they couldn't get home, home came for them..
Indyfreak - wrote on 08/05/17
Christopher Nolan takes a break from science fiction and superhero fare to deliver a harrowing, thrilling, and surprisingly inspiring war film with DUNKIRK.
Don't be fooled by the PG13 rating. Dunkirk is as intense and nail-biting as HACKSAW RIDGE or SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Nolan adopts a minimalist approach to a nonlinear narrative which sounds confusing at first but it makes sense by the end. We the audience see the disastrous retreat at Dunkirk evolve into the heroic rescue and evacuation of 300,000 trapped British soldiers unfold in 3 separate but overlapping stories. One by air, one by sea, and the last by land.
The all-British cast does well even if I admittedly didn't learn some of their names until the end credits. Harry Styles might seem out of place in a war epic like this but he finds his footing to serve as the POV character for the audience. Tom Hardy is British patriotism incarnate as a resilient pilot in the Royal Air Force who won't stand to allow one more German plane attack his fellow countrymen. Mark Rylance proves the emotional core of the film as an ordinary civilian who enlists his own family to sail for France across the channel to pick up survivors.
The editing and action scenes are very intense and nerve wracking. It proves you don't need to be rated R and have gore everywhere to demonstrate the brutality and chaos of war. More importantly, it shouldn't always have to be about chaos and nothing else. Out of the darkest and most dire situation, even Nolan can find hope and make it reach its full potential.
