Dunkirk Is Ready For Its Close-up Mr. DeMille
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Funny, I didn’t opine on your original review. I tend to see movies awhile after their releases. My thoughts:
1) I wondered why Nolan fictionalized the account of Charles Lightoller, and found that answered when the young Sea Scout aboard died after a fight with a soldier with PTSD. I found this to be a disturbing re-write of history. Nolan doing a movie on the Lincoln assassination and having John Wilkes Booth gain a girlfriend who does something dramatic and ahistorical would be a good parallel.
2) The events on the beach were a bit fantastic. We see a couple of groups of men wandering around wherever they want and they are never challenged by a non-commissioned officer. “Oh really? Well, you’re in my unit now!” must have happened quite a lot. People today simply do not understand how military discipline works.
Other than that, it was a decent movie. Still, it needed more Stuka sirens, even if we never saw the dive-bombers, and more rust on the RN ships.
Just watched the silent version. Agreed, it was an improvement!