Joseph Ryan

Artistically very striking, but it's clear that those who produced "Dunkirk" never served a day in the military. There was zero unit cohesion among the soldiers and there was zero small unit leadership. All the movie showed on the beach were junior enlisted soldiers and senior officers; no one in-between, in terms of rank, such as sergeants and captains. As a result, these soldiers were portrayed throughtout the movie as a disorganized mob, with no guidance or direction from above, and acted accordingly toward one another. One of the hallmarks of the British Army is its regimental system, where soldiers are recruited from the same region of the country. This system helps to preserve unit cohesion under extremely difficult circumstances such as what happened at Dunkirk. If I had served in the British Army, I would have been appalled as to how it was portrayed in "Dunkirk." The ending was stirring, and I'll give the producers credit for that. However, as a retired US Army warrant officer, it was painful to watch much of the movie up to that point.