Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Tom Hardy, Harry Styles, Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh
Movie Score: 98%
*[0-50%-red (poor); 50-70%-yellow (average to good, better and promising); 70-90%-green (very good to great); 90-100%-blue (outstanding to perfect and a masterpiece)]
There is no replacement of Christopher Nolan-seriously. Time and again, he is just proving that point of how to make and craft a movie with the blend of exactness and purity of cinematic visuals and essence of the story. Whether it’s The Dark Knight, Inception, Interstellar, Insomnia, The Following or The Prestige. The continuity is always static with each upcoming film. And now, here is Dunkirk-a war epic, with a real war event story. And mind you, Christopher Nolan just kills it!
In a way it’s just difficult to describe the impact it does after you have finished watching it. If there is any bigger compliment for this, it will be, a masterpiece! (Since there was a scarcity of words). Chris Nolan at his best, the cast at its best, the war at its best and the film being at its peak-unmatched and horrifyingly great!
[Spoilers Ahead]
The movie begins straight with the war and it keeps you stuck with itself till the very end. In a war movie (of the past) there are always characters (soldiers) who have something to tell about themselves-a brief flash of their own personal lives that they had, either with the family or friends or anything. But here-no side stories, no halt-just a focus on the event itself, completely. And that is the evacuation of the soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk, during May, 1940-on a 70mm epic screen!
It takes you with it, in a fusillade of explosion and terror, with a tension spread all over. There is basically no relation or feelings, you can have with any one character-why? Due to a sheer assertion only on the war and how it unfolds for the characters themselves-it’s amazing. Everything is just so real-the set pieces, the plane crashes, the sinking of the ship, the authenticity of scenes and the entire cast.
Tom Hardy has that mask on his face again (I don’t know the reason of this pattern-coincidentally, since The Dark Knight Rises). But here, he is a RAF pilot, Farrier, stuck in the middle of the war-zone, right at the start-and he is great. But Harry Styles, of whom everyone was having a chit-chat of what acting prowess he would show on-screen, is exceptionally and hopefully, excellent as a debutant in his role of Alex, who’s among one of the soldiers. Kenneth Branagh plays a naval officer, who’s scanning the entire area and looking out for options in the middle of terrifying horror and risk over many lives.
Most surprising thing amid some other key points about the film is its running time-just an hour and 46 minutes! It’s way less as compared to the past Nolan movies. But, for Dunkirk, it’s perfect, since the story starts and ends in a sequential way of war eruption and the final rescue. It is delivered through the ‘just narrative perspective’ of the director. He has taken the land, the air and the sea as the main areas of detailing and exploration with less talk and intense situations doing most of the job, with utmost impact.
‘This evacuation was successful!’
Overall, it’s a memorable masterpiece, worth watching on a gigantic theatre screen. Don’t let it pass by yourself.
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, and helmed by Christopher Nolan’s enigmatic and magical direction, Dunkirk releases this Friday, on 21st July, 2017.
