‘Dunkirk’ is a Slam Dunk

Release Date: July 21st, 2017
Cast: Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Director: Christopher Nolan
Studio: Bustedd Shark Productions
Distributor: Broad Green Pictures

Dunkirk is Christopher Nolan’s latest flick, a loud, explosive meditation on a very specific week in British history, as the British army was attempting to be evacuated from Dunkirk, France following the chaos of the early months of World War II.

The film follows three separate storylines that intertwine and overlap with each other. The British army on the beaches of Dunkirk trying to get home. A civilian vessel, The Moonstone, as it crosses the Channel to help ferry fighters home. And British Royal Air Forces as they attempt to provide cover to the nautical mission. When this concept is first introduced you may, if you’re like me, worry that Nolan is trying to over complicate it. But as the movie progresses this becomes clearer and doesn’t fall apart. 

The bulk of the movie is dealing with the young soldiers and their various attempts to get out of the battle alive, and the many complications preventing them from getting home. 

The movie’s plot is ‘simple’ and to go any further would just spoil it. It’s a loud, earth-shaking experience and if you are a Nolan fan you owe it to yourself to see this movie in theaters, with the loudest speakers you can find. 

The acting is stellar. The visuals are vibrant and bleak, alternating to create the mood perfectly, and the dialogue is minimal but more impactful for it.

Really it is hard to say much without worrying about spoiling the experience that Nolan worked so diligently to create in Dunkirk. It’s a trim two hours and keeps the tension tight the entire way through.  I say all of this as not necessarily a Nolan hater, but I try not to drink the Kool-Aid on anything (except for Star Wars, obviously) and so, while I have my qualms with some of Nolan’s work, Dunkirk does not fall to any of those hurdles.