I feel spoiled by these amazing films and shows coming out in recent years. We’ve got Mad Max: Fury Road, The Man in the High Castle, and now Dunkirk.
Honestly, I feel like it is MY time (as far as movies and shows go). I feel as though these works were written just for me! Well, I know they weren’t, but it feels that way!
I was lucky enough to see Dunkirk in an IMAX theatre, and let me tell you this: I was blown away. If there is an IMAX theatre near you, I recommend seeing it there. It’s worth the extra cost. The massive screen and sound system throw you into the film; if there is a match made in heaven, it is Dunkirk and IMAX.
We all know how the Battle of Dunkirk ends, but there are little nuances in the film that warrant a Spoilers Alert. Scroll past the image to read my review!
The movie follows three different sets of characters/places, The Mole, The Sea, and The Air. They take place at different times, but by the end of the movie, everything weaves itself together like a beautiful tapestry.
The background score was one of the best I’ve heard. It played right into the film, your emotions, and radiated a sense of urgency the entire time. It fit the stories like a leather glove (okay, so that was cliché, but it was the glove or sit here for ten minutes thinking of another metaphor).
While all three sets were wonderfully done, for brevity’s sake, I’m going to focus on The Mole.
You are thrown into The Mole with a young British private whose primary goal is to survive. The adventure starts immediately! He comes across another private (Gibson). The pair become unspoken battle buddies and do everything they can to survive while, somehow, doing the right thing the entire time.
The beauty of this is that no dialogue passes between them, for it is not needed (but there is a reason which I’ll touch on in a moment). Like the other soldiers, they want to survive. They aren’t cliché superheroes with raging biceps and capes; they are ordinary young men stranded under enemy fire. As a veteran, I found their scenes to be spot on.
The survival adventure begins to reach its crescendo when the pair join a group of soldiers and climb into a ship that had drifted to the beach. The soldiers hope that the tide will come in and carry it out to sea.
The ship is dangerously near enemy lines. The enemy does not see the group of British soldiers take refuge in the ship and start using it for target practice.
Tension rises.
The tide starts coming in.
Someone is shot trying to plug the holes.
He screams.
The enemy now knows that there are men aboard, so they begin firing on the ship with purpose. Tempers inside begin to flare, and it is then one of the soldiers notices that Gibson has never uttered an actual word.
The scene that follows sums up the perfection and beauty of the film. Gibson is not British. He is a French soldier trying to survive and escape just like the rest of them. When he realized only the British had a way off, he posed as one.
You don’t care about what he did. You want him and the others to survive and get back home.
Dunkirk is a masterpiece that ranks either first or second in my all-time favorite movies (I can’t decide if I like it better than Mad Max: Fury Road or not). It is a must see.
I give Dunkirk 5/5 stars.
