An elegantly-made war story for the whole family.

Rating: Null/10 (19 July 2017)

"Wars are not won by evacuations." Winston Churchill
By that reasoning, no epic film should be made of the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk beach in May 1940. But this is at least the second rendering, giving wunderkind writer/director Christopher Nolan a chance to create depth for the evacuation of 330,000 troops during a curious lull in the German advance. Nolan has personalized the war even better than Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.
Perhaps the Germans thought a few of their Luftwaffe could just pick the troops off "like fish in a barrel," thus having no need for Panzers or Nazi hordes. Well, they were wrong because about 800 private boats joined in the rescue, making the common man the hero in an otherwise soldier-dominated WWII. I would have liked to hear some of the German side (I can't remember when "German" was even mentioned). Yet, Nolan prefers to leave the enemy unknown and therefore making it existentially more horrifying.
As we've learned from Nolan's cinematic gymnastics, he can take time and switch it around as well as his virtuoso camera. He takes several points of view including three evacuating soldiers and the captain of a small vessel, Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance). In the latter, Nolan is especially effective at revealing the characters of Dawson's son and best friend and the rescued, shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) in the confines of the small boat. As for the volunteer RAF pilot, Ferrier (Tom Hardy), his cockpit contains all the action of an IMAX geographical documentary and textbook treatment of heroism and claustrophobia.
Where Nolan does not impress is his choice to restrict context so that young persons may not even have an idea this is WWII unless they carefully read the opening titles. By minimizing the dramatic action, Nolan also creates an un-epic story by restricting the context. A more satisfactory drama would be a distributed exposition through dialogue with commanders and politicians as well as the grunts.
The romantic Spitfire dog fights with Farrier, a skilled pilot, are just that—imaginative battle scenes that help give some epic moments. However, the sweep I would have liked came in Churchill's response to the evacuation: "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."