Epic 'take' on WWI masterfully executed by Mendes & Deakins

Rating: 9/10 (12 January 2020)

1917 (2019) ***1/2 Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch. Filmmaker Sam Mendes (who collaborated on the screenplay with Krysty Wilson-Cairns) makes an impressive mark in his Lean like take on the War Picture with the First World War as the setting for two green British soldiers tasked with a grave order - deliver the message to hold off a battle that the enemy has set them up for massive failure. With its one-take gimmick (i.e. the film never breaks action thru its run time), master cinematographer Roger Deakins takes on the Herculean challenge with grave aplomb in making the impossible, possible, not unlike the task set for its young charges.