A Mess

Rating: 4/10 (22 July 2017)

Once again the curse of Written and Directed by the same person strikes again!
From the very start, we watch well trained (from my own knowledge of history - this movie provides no background), British troops run down the middle of the road when fired on. Even untrained troops must have the instinct to seek the nearest cover of a door or alleyway?
The bland music is annoying, and was probably done to save time and money on background sound effects which would have added so much more to the drama.
After bombs are dropped onto the crowded beach, soldiers die, but you hear no wounded crying out for help.
The British Spitfires, while recreated extremely accurately, appear to have limitless ammunition.
The time shifting is totally confusing. One moment we are watching a scene in bright daylight, the next it is night, then back to day again.
What confused me most was when one pilot watched his wingman ditch, then he proceeded to shoot down a German bomber, after watching it in his rear view mirror for a while? Why would he do this? Why wouldn't he just turn and shoot it down?
A little later we go back in time to be with the pilot ditching. He then struggles to get out of his plane, but is eventually rescued. A little later, he watches his wingman shoot down the bomber! Are you kidding me? Unless his mate had been circling above, and given the time frame from the previous scene, the bomber should have been shot down whilst he was still trying to get out of his downed plane, and it would have happened miles away from where he was rescued.
Rather than provide a sense of the magnitude of Dunkirk, the film would have you believe, until one of the last scenes, that only a few large and small ships and boats took part. It doesn't show the lines of men in the water up to their shoulders waiting to be picked up. It doesn't even give you a sense of the time frame of several days.
Indeed, the ships shown look too modern to be early Second World War destroyers.
For those reviewers calling this the best war movie ever, I'm guessing this is the first you have watched.
Now go see Band of Brothers, to see how a real war movie/TV series is done.
Then see if you can find the original movie Dunkirk, starring John Mills, because although rather slow in places, this movie is still so much better than this new attempt.