Nolan's magic

Rating: 7/10 (9 February 2018)

When I was about to watch this movie, I was looking forward to bloody action with dead bodies, deafening explosions and shouting survivors. I got absolutely different war movie, but it was almost perfect.
The atmosphere of this film plays with your emotions, you feel yourself being one of the soldiers, whether in the sieged city or on some of the ships. The plot is dark, almost depressing, enhancing the horrors of the war. Every detail is taken seriously. However, someone might not like as expected something else.
As mentioned before, when you go to the theatre to see a war movie, you expect fully action bloodshed, as seen in Saving Private Ryan (1998) or Enemy at the Gates (2001). Not only Christopher Nolan could picture these sufferings, but also shown the war of psychical state of each individual. This is marvelous.
You can open your mouth in awe during the Stuka attacks or sinking the transport ships, but the bigger part of you is frightened about the lifes of the sailors and soldiers aboard and be honest, not every movie can do this with you. Even the effects are glorious, like the smoke, the explosions, the models of historic combat planes etc., the movie targets to emotions and this combination is perfect.
Now you maybe ask, why I rate the movie 7/10 and not more. Firstly, when you think deeper, Nolan forgot one important thing about the besieged city. The thing is, that the city is besieged. According to me, the factor of claustrophobia and non-existing escape route is forgotten as the movie is focused primarily on emotions. This is where I see lack of logic. The movie should tell the spectator more about the actual situation of the main characters.
Next flaws are just my personal attitude, but someone could prove it right. Who the hell gave a role in a war movie to Harry Styles? I know - it's maybe not my cup of tea, but many people around me say the same things. A pop band singer takes a role in a war movie. He doesn't look like a man, actually. Even the role is small, it's like a black dot on a clear white sheet. It simply doesn't suit me.
And now, the thing I hate most about the film - Tom Hardy. He is an excellent actor with great image and talent, no doubt about it. But I think that naming him as a main role is just marketing affair. You can say, he had a decent screen time, but how? 98% of his time on screen we could see him sitting in the cockpit of Spitfire, with glasses and mask on, murmuring some empty phrases. This is not how I see the main role. He should have been given a better role, this is honestly wasting good material.
After all, Dunkirk is Nolan's masterpiece, one of many. If you want to see a war movie pictured in a different way, go ahead. If you like psychological dramas full of emotions pictured in a different way, go ahead. The perfection of this film is only disrupted by wrong casting. 7/10