Great style, less substance

Rating: 7/10 (12 August 2019)

'Dunkirk' is a great film. And it's not. I really enjoyed a lot of it. And yet I can't see me ever watching it again. It's a two-hour account of one of the most famous 'retreats' in modern warfare (or, if I'm being cynical... a longer version of the opening credits to 'Dad's Army' - boom, boom!) where British and French troops were forced to fall back across the English channel after a failed attempt to recapture occupied France from German forces.
It's a 'Christopher Nolan film' and he is undoubtedly an amazing writer/director, meaning so much care and attention has been put into every last scene. He chooses a majority of 'practical effects' over computer-generated ones and it really does add to the 'realism' of it all. The overall look and feel of the film really is up there with 'Saving Private Ryan' in terms of how closely it resembles the actual events it portrays.
There were so many moments of real horror when thousands of young men are - literally - 'sitting ducks' for German forces to simply pick off at their leisure. You really do get a sense of how terrible it must have been for the soldiers when faced with such inevitable death.
So, if everything is so atmospheric, why do I feel a little let down by it all. Like I said, it's around two hours long and made up of three different stories, all relating to the conflict. One is about how the war was fought in the air (mainly through the eyes of Tom Hardy's Spitfire pilot), the second is about the boats crossing the English channel to rescue the stricken troops and the final is about Kenneth Branagh's General who is trying to get his men off the beach and onto some sort of safe transport back home.
Nothing wrong with having multiple stories, but - when it comes to characters - it seems like this film is trying to be more of a documentary/recreation, rather than a story with a cast of characters we can relate to. I know there have been other 'historical' films ('Titanic' and 'Pearl Harbour') that have tried to inject a (love!) story into the proceedings and got critisised for that. 'Dunkirk' is the exact opposite of those and you'd think it would be all the better for it. However, there just didn't seem to be any real 'star' of the film to really get behind.
Yes, One Direction singer Harry Styles is in it and actually does pretty well at acting. You could argue that Tom Hardy is the star, but seeing as he spends the film - technically - on his own in a one-man Spitfire, he doesn't get much in the way of other characters to play off. It's also worth noting that there are never any German characters to see. Here, they're just a 'faceless enemy' who we never see, other than the destruction their artillery causes.
If you're looking for a film that really captures the atmosphere of a very horrific battle in World War II then this ticks every box. However, if you're looking for a dramatic cast of characters it does fall a little short. Overall, it's memorable scenes will stay with me for a long time, so I certainly don't feel like I've wasted my times watching it.