I also don't get all the raves.....

Rating: 6/10 (18 February 2020)

Cinematography, setting, were absolutely great. Acting great. The feeling that 'you were there' --great. And it draws you in. Only one scene seems unnecessary--gratuitous (the scene with the mother and child), but like so many others pointed out, PLOT HOLES, PLOT HOLES, PLOT HOLES, turning this into what I generally hates about American movies--outrunning bullets and implausible situations.
Would LOVE for someone to legitimately explain:
1. The two start out over open country with the distinct possibility of being picked off, yet start with bayonets fixed, though crawling past/over barbed wire WITH bayonets. Later, when in the burned out town with German infestation at close range, no bayonet, just when needed. Also,
2 The soldier runs off without his rifle. To me, this is inexplicable: hostile territory, behind enemy lines, and he's going to outrun bullets and enemy soldiers, dodging this way and that (as he did in the trench, astonishingly).
Thanks.
The close-range shooting by the injured German sniper also bothered me--just a flesh wound, eh.
The French mother holed up with her child in a nasty burned out town infested with Germans...strange but not a plot issue.
Certainly strong points to the movie, but coming off as cartoonish in plot action. Still, the action is compelling. Sometimes found the accents hard to understand, particularly when talking as 'asides' or muttering to one another.
I don't understand the need for some to try to wish this into a true story. It was never pitched as true, and doesn't need to be. Other war moves (Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, Hamburger Hill) do a great job of communicating the horrors of war. Some '10'-raters seem to treat this as a genre-setting standard, which I don't see.