Movie Review: "Dunkirk"

"Dunkirk": C.  Despite the use of hundreds of extras to populate several scenes, Christopher Nolan, writer-director of the war movie Dunkirk, has taken a minimalist approach to telling the story of the 1940 rescue of British troops from the north coast beaches of France.  There is hardly any introduction to the setting, thus leaving it up to the viewer to figure out for herself how the infantrymen managed to find themselves not only stranded but fearful for their lives as they await evacuation before the Germans annihilate them.  Nolan's strategy might have worked better if the audience was limited to history majors and World War II buffs, but for the rest of us it was not user-friendly.

Exacerbating the problem is that the dialogue is, naturally, spoken with a British accent which is often hard to decipher.  Many of the young men facially resemble each other, especially with their helmets pulled low just above their soot-stained cheeks.  On second thought, maybe it's not so important that the audience is able to distinguish the characters because their is no character development to speak of; except for a handful of officers, the men are fungible.  That point is driven home in the closing credits, where many of the soldiers are not even given the honor of having a name.  Instead we see characters listed as "second gunnery mate," "third rifleman" and the like.

Another related topic given short shrift is the rationale for the Germans basically ignoring their cornered enemy, the Allies.  Only a couple of Luftwaffe planes appear sporadically to strafe the human sitting ducks below.  By the same token, only a pair of Spitfires are on hand to help out their British brethren.  I found the midair dogfights to be the most entertaining facet of a film which otherwise drags.   We learn in the second half of the movie that the English brain trust, most notably Prime Minister Winston Churchill, came to the conclusion that only a single destroyer could be spared, from other parts of the war effort, to sail across the Channel to rescue the semi-abandoned troops.  Still, that does not explain why the Germans were practically no-shows.

Because of Churchill's questionable decision regarding use of military assets, it was left up to civilian mariners to tackle the hazardous rescue mission in their own vessels.  Another odd choice by Nolan is to show only one such boat owner, Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance, who won an Academy Award for his work in 2015's Bridge Of Spies), taking on the perilous challenge.  We wonder, "Is Mr. Dawson the only boat-owning English civilian who was up to the task?"  The answer is not disclosed until near the end.

The story rotates, at times almost in staccato fashion, among the land, the air and the sea.  Some critics might find that approach creative.  I found it to be annoying and artificial, rendering the film choppy and disjointed.

Finally, a couple of notes about two other actors appearing in the movie.  Kenneth Branagh is a heralded and highly decorated Irish actor known mostly for his portrayal of many of Shakespeare's leading men.  He is wasted in Dunkirk as Commander Bolton, the pier master during the evacuation.  Bolton's main (and apparently only) duty is to stare out to sea, as if in a hypnotic trance, searching for any rescue ship that may appear on the horizon.  Sometimes, for variety, he glances up at the sky.  Those vacant, distant glares cause me to nominate Branagh's performance for the Henry Fonda Bad Acting Award.

I knew Harry Styles was cast in this film, and as someone familiar with the pop boy band One Direction, I predicted that I'd easily be able to identify him in Dunkirk.  Wrong!  I had to search the cast list to find out which of the several distraught yet brave young soldiers was he.  Answer: Alex.  Maybe if I were a thirteen year old girl it would not have been a problem.