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1917 Movie Review

1917 is a 2019 war film directed by Sam Mendes and starring George MacKay. It’s one of the best movies of the year.

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“I hoped today would be a good day.

Hope is a dangerous thing“

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It follows two young British soldiers during World War I who are tasked with delivering a message calling off an attack doomed to fail soon after the German retreat. Firstly, the screenplay itself is actually very good. Despite what many would say, the movie isn’t just a gimmick flick, but it also has heart and soul, something that ‘Dunkirk’ never had.

It’s all about friendship and brotherhood during war. The central friendship is so powerful that it carries such heightened emotional intensity for the entire duration of the picture. The brotherhood angle is truly heartbreaking, and in particular the scene with Blake’s brother broke my heart, and it almost made me cry. Love and importance of humanity is also touched upon in that seemingly detourish scene with the French woman that is so sweet that it ultimately worked. The cherry blossoms and milk are powerful symbols in the film.

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The acting is also immensely underappreciated as everybody here did a terrific job. Certainly, Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch didn’t need to be there, but they didn’t take me out of the movie too much as their scenes were very short. But all of the others make an impact, all the people they meet along the way, especially Mark Strong and of course Richard Madden in such an emotional turn.

Dean-Charles Chapman is so good in what he did here, which is give his character Tom Blake a lot of likability and heart. As for George MacKay, his performance is fantastic. He was before in ‘Captain Fantastic’, but here he sold the emotional scenes particularly well, and I find his performance in particular incredibly underrated.

1917 is a one-shot gimmick movie seemingly so, and more on that later, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a human, incredibly emotional movie as I have demonstrated above, but at its core it’s one heck of an adventure. It’s odd saying it like that as an adventure usually indicates a positive term, but the film is executed in such a way that it reminded me of old-fashioned adventure pictures of yesteryear.

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Instead of relying extensively on the action which I feared, the movie thus favored drama, slower scenes of the characters on a journey and superbly realized set pieces. Yes, the film is incredibly dark, brutal at times, disgusting and consistently suspenseful, but the journey itself is immensely engaging to follow, and I was taken aback at how incredible some of the sequences were.

Of course that last run was terrific, but the night sequence during the fire was visually breathtaking, and incredibly intense. I was blown away by that entire sequence. But my favorite scene has to be the underground German barracks set piece. The rat, the mines, getting out of the exploding barracks… Everything there reminded me so much of video games, and the best kind of games like the platform genre in particular which I adore. The whole film has that unmistakable video game quality to it, and I don’t know if it was truly intentional, but it needs to be brought up more in these discussions.

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Finally, there is that now famous one shot. Unlike ‘Birdman’ and even ‘Rope’, this movie reaches greatness and ambition never before reached when the one-shot movie is concerned. The entire movie was filmed in one continuous, uninterrupted, seemingly unedited shot where we follow the protagonists on their journey to deliver this important message. I personally found that obvious one cut during the explosion, but the others were seemingly invisible.

The production design is so meticulous in details, and the effects are so superb in how invisible they are. But the cinematography itself is truly the best part of the movie as it accentuated all of the above, and the various angles from which the story was told all seemed suitable given the emotional context of a particular scene.

Some of the imagery here, especially the natural landscapes and the fire scene, are downright artistic in quality how beautifully composed they are. The dialogue is strong as is the tone of the film, the score itself is fantastic and suitably very intense, at times even unbearably so, and the pacing is fantastic as the film captivated me in its every moment. Sam Mendes himself has never made a better movie, which says a lot given his resume, but this truly is his masterpiece, and one of the best WWI films of all time.

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Not since ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ has there been a greater World War I movie than 1917. The film’s famous one shot is absolutely brilliant, seemingly unedited and delivering the best angles at any given time. The production design is spectacular, the score is suitably intense, the acting is so strong and underappreciated, the direction is amazing, and some of the imagery here, especially the fire scene, felt truly artistic. But the movie is so much more than just this unprecedented technical achievement. It is a film about brotherhood and friendship, it’s downright heartbreaking in some scenes and its most impressive achievement is how it was conceptualized as an immersive adventure film and an exciting video game. The ending is emotional, the night sequence is incredibly suspenseful and the abandoned barracks scene is unforgettable in its entirety. Consequently, Sam Mendes here directed his magnum opus and one grand war picture for the ages.

My Rating – 5