Why Is Dunkirk A Most Disappointing Movie Of The Year

Director: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh

Genre: War, Drama, Action

Year: 2017

Dunkirk is a story about the evacuation of 400 000 trapped allied soldiers that run away from Germans and waited for the rescue on the beaches of Dunkirk.

The last movie from Christopher Nolan (Memento, TDK trilogy, Inception, Prestige, Interstellar) received excellent reviews, some of them calling it maybe the best war movie ever. Well in my humble opinion it is one of the most disappointing movies of 2017.

Nolan wanted to focus on the evacuation of these soldiers and hell they went through without going into details about events that preceded. To do so he decided to use real planes, real ships, and statists (he used around 6000 statists) without CGI. Initially, he also wanted to make a movie without a dialog but later changed his opinion (although final movie also doesn’t have too much dialogue). There is no main character in the movie. There is no hero that will kill 1000 enemies and save the day. Nolan wanted to make Dunkirk as realistic as possible. And I appreciate that because I don’t like pathetic war movies and  I don’t like when a movie has too much of (obvious and unnecessary) CGI.

The story is told in a non-linear fashion so we see a couple of events from the different point of view (from land, sea, and air).

But unfortunately he did not succeed and for me, Dunkirk felt unconvincing.

One of the problems is that you don’t have a feeling that this was such a massive and dangerous operation. You don’t get a feeling there were 400 000 soldiers on that beach. You get more of a feeling that a couple of fisherman boats were trying to save 1000 people (same goes for events in the air – 3 allied planes are fighting 3 German planes). I think if Nolan added more people, ships, and planes in the background via CGI this would look more convincing.

The second problem, the story is told in a non-linear fashion so we see a couple of events from the different point of view (from land, sea, and air). But this doesn’t contribute to anything besides that you feel little confused at the moments and that movie feels longer because of this.

And the last thing. If you’re making a realistic movie, and Dunkirk at some moments felt like you were watching a documentary, you can’t cram pathetic lines, Branagh tearful eyes, that kid on a boat or last events surrounding Hardy’s character and expect for the audience to not roll their eyes. Look, I rewatched Saving Private Ryan couple of days later after Dunkirk and it contains a lot of pathetic scenes. But that movie didn’t try to make you think you’re watching realistic depiction of the events – although action scenes, especially that opening in Normandy, looks far more realistic, brutal and convincing than any scene in Dunkirk.

You may think that I hated Dunkirk – I didn’t. I think it is a well-made war movie, with good performances from all the actors, solid direction from Nolan and score from Hans Zimmer. But in my humble opinion it is overrated and one of the most disappointing movies of 2017. Maybe I just expected too much because of the rave reviews.

Best war movie? Yes, it is, only if you didn’t watch Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan or Deer Hunter just to mention a few war movies that I think are way better then Dunkirk. Some also said that this is Nolan’s best movie. I also don’t agree with this. Actually, I think Nolan movies are getting worse and worse. Memento was a masterpiece, TDK is one of the best superhero movies ever made, Prestige and Inception were excellent and Insomnia and Batman Begins were very good movies. His last three movies (TDKR, Interstellar and now Dunkirk) are just not at the same level.

You can check Blu-ray on Amazon if you’re interested.