When the general dispatches the two lance corporals on their 9-kilometer run . . .

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2020)

. . . with a vital message during World War One, those viewers in the audience with either cross country or marathoning experience will be sure to brace themselves for the grueling ordeal ahead. The beginning of this WWI trek commences in slow motion, not unlike film footage of the Boston Marathon's annual onset, during which it takes some competitors about half an hour to cross the starting line AFTER officials yell "Go!" However, once the corporals get their lances in gear, their quest begins to take on the guise of a cross country event, complete with unexpected obstacles (such as broken bridges or army trucks mired in the mud) and life-threatening narrow escapes. As I grew up, one of my uncles devoted much of our summer visits to regaling us with his foot race "war stories." For instance, one time he led the first five miles of a marathon in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, he had started out too fast, and passed out a couple blocks from the finish line--somehow running TWO MILES in the opposite direction and then waking up in the back seat of a Philly police squad car! When "William" has the shootout with the German sniper by the broken bridge and is knocked unconscious for several hours, I was reminded of my uncle's experience.

During my relative's NEXT marathon in the City of Brotherly Love, he felt himself beginning to lose it again after 22 miles. Just then a senior citizen veered off the road next to the race course, snapping off a light pole. My uncle dropped out of the race, turned off the geezer's car engine (where the vehicle had come to rest in some bushes) and waited for the Authorities to arrive. In 1917, the lance corporals also face problems created by the arrival of a crashing vehicle (the shot down Prussian plane). My uncle said that during his first marathon, another competitor thought someone hit him in the head with a rock. When this guy finished, he had a stray hunter's bullet lodged in his skull! William finishes his 9K jaunt with several bullets in his body (most of them not so stray!). Then, of course, there's the Boston Marathon Bombing, which runners in the movie theater will instantly think of as the booby trapped bunker begins to explode during 1917. Bottom line: this film illustrates why ALL road racers and cross country harriers--no matter how poor--should be packing heat during their events, so go watch 1917, and then generously support your local chapter of BANGS (Broke Americans Need Gun Stamps).