Riley Gestwa

If I had only one bomb, I would use it to blow up this movie.

What so many of these reviewers seem to miss is that this is a movie about the psychology and coping mechanisms of soldiers engaged in trench warfare. Many of these reviews cite this movie as boring or say that nothing happened or that there is no backstory or context. This movie is a snippet of the life of soldiers in WW1. Do you think those soldiers had context of what the situation at the time really was? Fuck no. To me this movie hits the targets on a lot of points, for example: - young men enlisted in a war they know next to nothing about without the opportunity to know what they’re committing to in advance - the regret of giving up a life you could have had for some vague patriotic fervour and peer pressure - the way a mind can unravel under the absolutely incomparable stress of trench warfare - the ways individuals can show strength and guidance even when under duress - the way war can take everything and everyone important away from you without warning or reason This film is a visceral tale of a platoon of young British men that had no idea they volunteered for the most catastrophically unfair and unnecessary conflict the world had ever seen and the ways they experienced and dealt with it. As a person who is interested in the nuance and psychology of WW1, this was a gripping film. As an informed individual who is fascinated with the war, battles and tactics of the war; I felt that the final scenes, casualties and depiction of no man’s land itself did not do justice to what the Somme valley was really like for the soldiers that fought there. I’d give this movie a strong 7/10 for WW1 drama, but a lower maybe 5 or 4 for realistic depictions of the war. It’s no “All Quiet On the Western Front” (yes I know WW1 to WW2), but it does have a certain hurry up and wait feeling that I think is intensely authentic to the situation. The way soldiers lives are taken and given randomly and unconcernedly feels veritably realistic.