SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

(You have been warned)


SUMMARY:

A reenactment of the brave civilians who risked their lives by using their commercial and private boats to save the survivors of Dunkirk.

GRADE: C -

While the story is good, two important details are missing....

DETAIL ONE: There's no sign of any military equipment on the beaches during any of the flyover scenes.

Every photo I've seen of the Dunkirk evacuation shows tons of military equipment cluttering the beach at Dunkirk.

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DETAIL TWO: There is no mention of who the enemy is.

NO WHERE at NO TIME does anyone mention the word "Nazis" or "Luftwaffe" during any of the attack scenes. The word "U-Boat" is mentioned only once.

Hey, Mr. Nolan...there are some people who do not know world history. It'd been nice of you to mention who the enemy was and make this an EDUCATIONAL movie. Granted...I knew who was involved...but not everyone else know that.

...or has it become a crime to mention the word "Nazi" nowadays?


BEST OVERALL SCENE:

The lone RAF pilot who sacrifices every drop of fuel in his plane to shoot down Nazi planes so the soldiers can escape.

I noticed the (almost) complete lack of the word Nazi and/or German as well. However, when that small group is hiding in the fishing trawler waiting for the tide they do accuse the one guy of being a German spy. Just to add one more mention to your list

Despite practically no character development for anyone, I really liked this flick! I'm sure someone could name a few but this is one of the first war movies I can recall where there were no standout 'characters,' and I thought that a refreshing change.

A couple of nitpicks: (where have I heard that before?) while I too liked how the RAF pilot coasted around without fuel and still shooting down planes but the engine alone would probably be heavy enough to not allow for that. Also, the bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe didn't seem to pack anywhere close the punch they should've IMHO. A very interesting movie indeed

One other thing I thought odd with this film was the decision to not make it a linear storyline. It followed four separate points-of-view and the timeframe jumps around between them, over the course of a day or so. I wasn't prepared for that. It wasnt difficult to follow along but I don't really see the point of doing that. I suppose Nolan was reliving his Momento days.

It aired on the Canadian History Channel yesterday evening. I liked it.

I just wish they'd added annotations at the end, telling us what ultimately became of the characters (after the war, so-and-so became a lawyer and married such-and-such, etc).

It's quite clear that the pilot and Kenneth Branagh's character became POW's, but what happened after that. Did they survive the war?

Still, an excellent movie, IMO.