Dunkirk Movie Review

Dunkirk (2017)

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Written by: Christopher Nolan
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan,Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Rated: PG-13
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Plot
Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire, and France are surrounded by the German Army, evacuating during a fierce battle in World War II.

Verdict
It's an incredible work that is more than a movie, it's an experience. Intertwining stories capture the emotions of war. There's a young man desperate to escape, the fighter pilot that is bound by duty above his own safety, and a civilian drafted to service with wavering confidence.
It's an immersive experience and a beautiful movie that is so dense you don't just need to watch again, you want to, immediately.
Watch it.

Review
From the start this impresses with great visuals and a staggering scale. The sparse dialog pulls you in, allowing you to focus on the visuals and dig into the emotions of the characters. It's an immersive experience  as this is crafted to really put you into the movie and into the scene. The music drives that home even further.

One of the characters, Tommy, tries to use a wounded man to board a medical ship. He's denied passage. We know he would do anything to escape. The soldiers know the outlook is bleak. A big note for this movie is that "the mole" is the pier like structure depicted on the beach. If you were anticipating a spy, don't.

Different scenes depict soldiers on the mole, pilots, and a civilian driving a ship to Dunkirk to assist the evacuation. Chapter heads mark when the scenes change character perspective with subtext denoting one week or one hour. The timeline doesn't follow a chronological order, jumping back and forth and looping. The story does a great job of converging these stories at their respective pinnacles. Each story gives us just enough to care which heightens the impact of these characters.

While Dunkirk is a war movie, it isn't gory. There is constant carnage and devastation. We see destroyed ships and debris. Nowhere is safe. That sense of dread is constant, we feel it just as the characters do, and that's because this is completely immersive. I could connect to the journey of the characters. It's an intriguing movie that I wanted to watch again just to track the timelines closer and experience it again.