Nerve-wracking dissertation on military washout.

Rating: 9/10 (15 November 2017)

Dunkirk pulls few punches while bringing us a clean look at a disastrous military event. We find Tom (Fionn Whitehead), Alex (Harry Styles) and a handful of other young men trapped on the sea while Germans mercilessly pound the surf, bombard their position and decimate their ranks. Dozens of them piled into freighters, buffeted by waves and hope and despair, and few of them will ever return to their homes.
Tension is ratcheted up by the incessant ticking of a watch, reminding us there are scant hours left before the next outbound ship or strike. The Germans are seldom seen; we hear of them planning, we seem them in planes in glorious dogfights with the Brits and we know they are the hammer that will drop, inexorably and mercilessly, on the assembled masses below. The aerial fight sequences are masterfully shot, with bullets ripping the air and the planes painstakingly recreated to give us a real idea of those sequences.
One of the few downsides of the movie lies in its limited character development. We see the effects and results of war, but little is known about the featured soldiers outside of their current projects and a bit on their families. We see their prejudices emerge when they have to make choices on how can leave or enter their holds, however, and those moments are enrapturing.
Dunkirk scores high as a war movie. To miss it is to miss story writ large, even if that story has dire consequences for all involved.