Dunkirk will age really badly.

Rating: 6/10 (24 July 2017)

Dunkirk is Christopher Nolan out of depth and in uncharted waters. It's a movie that wants very hard to be great. Where characters talk in monosyllables and look meaningfully at each other or in the distance expecting the viewer to be with them in their moment. Going by the majority of the reviews, this British war survival story has been bought by a lot. I was sitting in the theater waiting for that moment of redemption in the movie that never really came. Critics, it seems have seen the movie and adapted their tastes to like it and find deeper meaning (as critics often do) in perhaps the most straightforward story line made interesting only because of the non-linear editing tropes which Nolan otherwise uses well in his other movies to some purpose. Here it becomes too much of a gimmick and some extremely non moving and non interesting events are made to seem more than what they are. What remains of Dunkirk is an aural and visual spectacle that falls squarely flat by the time the last of the British is rescued. The movie has multiple endings and at such a short run time, the ending can't come fast enough. Nolan has admittedly taken off from multiple movies before he made Dunkirk and his effort is different in the way it has such less impact even after bombarding the viewer with bullets, bombs and an overpowering Hans Zimmer soundtrack.
Hoyte Van Hoytema is a brilliant cinematographer. The Spitfire is a brilliant machine (as mentioned by Nolan in many interviews and expressed by one of the characters in the movie.) The aerial photography is like no other you may have seen. But all of this amounts to nothing. The spitfire maybe a brilliant machine and Hoytema may have taken brilliant shots but the story line flounders away in the air somewhere. Tom Hardy can't see the plane clearly and after the 10th shot of the same plane meandering here and there you realize the war can be really tedious and boring without that pounding Hans Zimmer soundtrack at the background. Thanks Christopher Nolan for putting me right in the middle of the war with such lovely heart pounding score, because frankly the screenplay isn't your best bet here and you know it.
I'll go on here and speculate now because I'm a fan of the man and want to. The man who doesn't seem to falter even when he makes a movie like The Dark Knight Rises as he infuses a lot of commentary and brilliance in the weakest of plots. Christopher Nolan has a very visible Stanley Kubrick hangover. He has a picture of Kubrick's chair in his office, he swears by Kubrick's brilliance and if you try and see there are quite a few similarities in the filmography of the British compatriots (Dunkirk being his Paths of Glory). Wanting to be the greatest and most complete filmmaker is the noblest of ambitions but wanting to be like someone else may not be. Before Dunkirk, he was a man who would blow your minds off with a plot twister like Memento or The Prestige, a mind bender like Inception or Following or his villains would have the most memorable roles like The Joker. Dunkirk is Nolan's 'war movie'. Every great director generally ends up making one and wants to make the greatest one. (No one comes close to the Thin Red Line and Apocalypse Now yet, IMO) Dunkirk makes me believe in Christopher Nolan the human director. This guy wanted to make his war movie and when I see it, this was a movie the world would be better off without. In these times of war and international strife, the movie shows you some of the horrors of the war while squarely glamorizing many aspects of it ("The Spitfire with the Rolls Royce engine is the greatest machine ever built." Says the old guy to his Son in the movie.) I have read many Nolan interviews to find out what this important artist who wields great artistic influence the World over, thinks about what's happening in the World. His world views are unfortunately not much available in the interviews and going by Dunkirk, a patriotism filled British epic lauded by all the British and the colonial powers the world over, it's quite unfortunate that this is the movie we have to live with as the Best reviewed movie of the year. One watch is enough to tell you the movie is average at best and I can't make myself believe it's greater than it really is when it's squarely a technical achievement.
Christopher Nolan is at the zenith right now as Dunkirk becomes his best reviewed film and may of course get an Oscar or two thanks to the technical brilliance. It remains his most manipulative and weakest story. A very flimsy plot made watchable thanks to the score and the camera.
Dunkirk would age really badly and few years from now, may not even be considered in his best movies.