Year: 2019 Rated R Genre: Historical Fiction, War, World War I Language: English Runtime: 1:59:00 Director: Sam Mendes ☆★ Main Cast: George Mackay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Colin Firth, Andrew Scott, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Madden
Notable Mention: The Long Takes
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Another war film. I contemplated for a long time whether to add this film to the List. The List now includes four war films, excluding Atonement. Atonement's more a romance film. The four war films are: All Quiet on the Western Front, this film, The Hurt Locker and Dunkirk. Out of the four films, 1917 was the easiest to watch.
I liked the long takes. I heard there are better films with long takes. But I don't know those films. 1917 was the first film I watched that's made up of two long takes.
The story is alright. Not unique. I like its simplicity. Deliver this message. If you fail, tens of thousands soldiers will die. It's a perilous journey. You gotta dodge bullets, bombs, escape a collapsing, underground passage, do a little hand-to-hand combat. A little of every kind of danger, but no kind of danger you wouldn't expect in a war. That's the problem. The one scene from the film where I felt something was when the main characters saved an enemy and the enemy ended up killing one of them. That was a good scene. I was sad and angry. Besides that one great scene and the beautiful cinematography, the rest of the film is any World War I film footage recycled and repackaged. I would be more forgiving if 1917 was a true story, or if it was based on an important piece of literature. Neither was the case. All in all, although beautifully shot, 1917 suffers from a weak story.
