Review of Dunkirk (2017) by Redison — 27 Jul 2017

There is great beauty in the film and Nolan successfully avoids the sloppy romanticizing of war usually present in war films. But something was missing. While the film's mission seemed to focus on the individual dramas being played out in a commendable effort to personalize the horror of war, the evacuation itself was badly represented.

One would think from viewing the film that there were a few arial dog fights and few ships sunk but otherwise an orderly evacuation. It was not. There were thousands of sorties and 16 squadrons of the Royal Air-force engaged in Operation Dynamo.

The French were fiercely fighting a regard action to hold off the advancing German divisions. The sheer desperation and scale of the calamity never reaches the audience. The result a good movie with the potential to be great movie is lost.