First Hit: Although many of the camera angles and shots were engaging, the flaws in the storyline kept me out of entirely falling into this movie.
I do my best to ignore hoopla, reviews, and articles about films before seeing them. It causes and creates preconceived ideas that are rarely met, along with providing filters that have to be ignored.
Such was the case with this movie. So much noise about how great this film is.
Granted the effect given by the one-camera one-shot concept was good. This concept was ambitious, but the action wasn’t really shot with one camera and didn’t really happen during one long shot. Therefore, I found myself guessing which were the one-shot moments which were the ones they edited to make it look like one-shot one-camera.
If I’m watching a movie and my mind is dancing with these questions, it just means I’m not fully ensconced in the story and presentation, and that isn’t good.
Besides the camera stuff, the other aspects that didn’t work for me were: A scene when Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay) gets shot at from the German sniper soldier in a building after he crossed a destroyed bridge. Why did they simultaneously shoot each other and Schofield fall back downstairs, as if he were hit, and end up with no injuries? The German, as we expected, was hit and died. Then, how did Schofield not get hit as he was chased through the burning buildings being pursued by multiple German soldiers shooting at him? How did the wounds he did received appear and disappear, yet the bandage on his right hand from a barbed wire wound early in the story consistently appear in later shots? How did Schofield and Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) not hear any of the trucks or men marching near the farmhouse where the plane crashed? One moment, the stillness and quiet of the farm are interrupted by a plane crash. Then Blake fights with the surviving German pilot, then within minutes, a whole battery of trucks and men are swarming on the same farm. Noise from the vehicles made in 1917 and the men of the advancing regiment, would have been heard long before the plane crash and certainly after it. However, here they are not heard. They just appear like ants scurrying around the farm.
When these many questions are running through my mind as I watch the scenes unfold, It’s hard for me to be a fully engaged fan of the film.
The movie’s story is about two men, Schofield and Blake, being ordered to locate and warn an English regiment that is pursuing the German Army that the Germans have set this pursuit up as a trap to destroy the following regiment. Blake is given this assignment because General Erinmore (Colin Firth) has learned that Blake’s brother is a lieutenant in the pursuing regiment. To me, this was a questionable motivational strategy by the General. Blake was asked to select another soldier to be his companion, and he chose Schofield because they were close friends. However, the overall goal and motivation to save some 1,600 men were not in question.
The difficulties that Schofield and Blake endured as they cross the previous battle lines are for the most part engaging. However, none of the scenes were pointedly unique when compared to scenes in other films, like Peter Jackson’s “They Shall Not Grow Old,” or Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” or Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk.” In fact, the section where they pass through the destroyed German Artillery appeared too staged.
MacKay was excellent as Blake’s reluctant partner. As we know he would, he showed up with strength and compassion when needed. Chapman was perfect as Blake, who was going to save his brother’s regiment no matter what happened. His scene after being stabbed by the German pilot he saved, was excellent. Sam Mendes and Kristy Wilson-Cairns wrote this interesting screenplay. Mendes did a terrific job of splicing together individually-shot scenes to create the exciting momentum of a single-shot movie.
Overall: Thought that I’ve seen better films are telling this sort of story.