Dunkirk or "Christopher Nolan Wants To Hit You Around The Head With a Bat"

Rating: 4/10 (22 July 2017)

There's not much said in "Dunkirk" for a lot of the time. Occasionally, officers heave into view for some handy bits of exposition, but mostly this is a film where the soundtrack consists of tortured metal grinding, diving bombers screaming, engines roaring and Hans Zimmer's score.
And what a score it is. More industrial BWAAAMPS and thuds, as if the sounds of battle were not horrific enough.
It's to make the point that war is hell. I get that. Although I've also come to the conclusion that war could potentially be worse if it was accompanied by a Hans Zimmer score.
The story mainly consists of one event that took place during the Dunkirk evacuation, seen from three different points of view, that you then see three times during the movie. Yes, playing around with a non-traditional narrative structure is cool and clever. But it's also kind of pointless in a film like this.
I mean, we in the audience sit there, potentially in suspense - will the thing that we've seen happen twice before in the movie happen again the third time?? Well, of course it will. Suspense gone. Patience running thin.
The movie ends abruptly on a note of patriotism. Nothing wrong with that. But hearing Churchill quoted as Elgar swells isn't exactly subtle is it? But Christopher Nolan seems to have lost touch with subtlety. He wants his audience bludgeoned, beaten, BWAAAAAMP'ed into submission. I think I'll stick with David Lean.