An exciting thrill ride that does justice to the real event

Rating: 9/10 (24 July 2017)

There is a great gap between the opinion of general movie goers and more experienced film watchers when it comes to Christopher Nolan. Some people think he is a genius, while others believe him to be above average at best. I fall somewhat in- between those categories, but I think that anyone who loves movies can appreciate and enjoy his newest film 'Dunkirk". I'm sure there is already a movement on the internet and on reddit to begin calling this film an "instant classic", and although I won't go that far I will say that I loved this movie. If I had to put it into numbers, I'd say it's around a 9.5/10 for me. I'll start by discussing what drives the film. It's not characters, as they mainly serve as vessels for the audience to view this film through. In truth the characters are not super fleshed out, but this isn't due to them being shallow, but instead due to the fact that the film is sparse on dialogue. No, the score is what powers this film. More so than even films like 'Baby Driver', I think the score is the most important element of 'Dunkirk'. It is constantly going throughout the film, never stopping to let the audience catch their breath until the very end. It is sometimes more quiet and subtle, taking form as the sound of a ticking clock or light string instruments, and other times it ramps up its intensity to draw us into the action unfolding in front of us. If this movie isn't nominated for best original score as well as best sound mixing it will be a real shame. From the first gun shot on you know this film is going to blow out some eardrums. It's viscerally loud. SO loud that some people complain they could not hear the dialogue, but even though the British accents could be hard to understand I would never say it was too hard to hear them. Sounds instead of dialogue move this movie's story along, and seeing as Nolan is a pretty crappy writer when it comes to dialogue (for the most part) this is a good thing.
Another thing I loved about this movie is just how real it felt, and I'm not just talking about the action. All the boats and planes seemed to be real and not CGI. Even as they crashed, exploded, and sunk into water. It all seemed so natural that I have no idea how he could have honestly filmed it without CGI, yet at the same time if the movie did use computer generated effects they were so top notch that I could not detect them. Due to this and the way they were shot (very up-close for the most part, almost to the point of them being POV shots) I'd have to say that 'Dunkirk' has the best aerial combat and dogfights of any movie I have ever seen by a long margin. But it's not just that either, but the uniforms and the beach and surrounding city itself just looked so amazing and authentic. It truly feels like you're just a bystander watching the chaos take place sometimes. The amount of actual planes, ships, uniforms, and extras Nolan must have gotten for this movie is just insane to think about. And overall it's all filmed so well too. The scenes of characters barely escaping drowning as their ship goes down is so pulse poundingly exciting and the camera is there up close to steadily film it all as it takes place.
This film feels very lean to me. By that I mean not a single shot is wasted, nor held too long, and there is very little downtime for inner reflection or lulls in the action. When there are lulls, the movie tries to force in some seemingly bogus drama, like a character going blind and another character accusing someone of being a spy. I don't love these elements of the film as much, but by the end I do think they lead to some proper story-arcs and actually helped develop our characters. My only real problem with this film to be honest is a continuity error towards the beginning. The camera puts us right up close to a character as bombs are being dropped, slowly but surely edging towards him but stopping just in the nick of time. Then, the film cuts to a wide angle, and here we see no dead bodies or craters from the bombs' impacts. This is such an obvious and frustrating error that it confounds me as to why it was even included in the film. But as I said, I love this movie. The ending for Tom Hardy's character might just be one of my favorite moments in any film. I recommend 'Dunkirk' to anybody and everybody, even if you absolutely despise Nolan I think this film exemplifies his best traits and his ambitiousness as a big budget director while downplaying his flaws.