Gritty War at its Worse

Rating: 9/10 (19 February 2020)

This was a great cinematographic epic film that followed two British soldiers to deliver a vital message to an otherwise doomed, isolated regiment. The premise of the plot was to hand deliver a letter from the commanding general to warn the regiment to cancel the dawn advance against a heavily fortified german defense. The result of the advance would most certainly be a massacre of 1,600 British soldiers.
Mendes used a continuous and seamless filming technique using boom and hand held cameras to intimately follow the two soldier-messengers through no mans land and into a hellish landscape of destroyed farmhouses and towns. The filming technique brought the war into the theater. There was an eerie silence in the large audience. This was a gut-wrenching history lesson for many and a cinematic achievement of great mastery. Overall, a brutal, but beautiful film.