It Was Off to a Good Start, then...

Rating: 5/10 (5 August 2017)

Possibly the film was over-hyped and my expectations were much too high, but I can only express great disappointment in 'Dunkirk'. Three failures come to mind, of which none existed in 'Private Ryan' or some of the other great WWII films. The camera placement on both the French and English coastlines was inconsistent, thus very difficult to realize where we were at times during the film. Short of having small titles to tell the audience of where were were in some of the scenes, they should have had each coastline (France & England) on one side of the screen or the other. For example, we went from the 'White cliffs of Dover' immediately to the French coast line with both beaches on the right side of the screen. I think that type of thing was a huge error in making the film. As a pilot I found it interesting that the Spitfire pilot, with plenty of time to prepare for ditching and was not injured, did not have his canopy in the rear position prior to hitting the water, a very basic safety measure even in a Cessna with the door released prior to impact. I felt the story line was very disjointed and part of that could be the fact that I'm American and it was difficult to understand all of the lines in the Queen's English. For this movie the popcorn was the best part.