#Michael Caine is acting like he’s in a psychological thriller

[kaboomi]

Watched The Muppet Christmas Carol for the first time and uh wow that was incredible

[imdrunkandreviewingshit-blog]

Sober Review of “Dunkirk”: The Union Jack Stands For Hope

              My hook is that I watch movies and write about them while drunk. I recognize that this is the only thing that really makes me appealing among the many reviewers out there. Without that angle, I’m just another twenty-something year old guy with a liberal arts degree who thinks he knows more than you. So, going into my showing of Dunkirk, I had every intention of getting blasted. I had my menu, I was ready to order a Stella and enjoy myself, but then the opening scene hit.

              Pamphlets fall from the sky to soldiers walking the streets below. A soldier grabs one and reads it. It’s a taunt from the enemy, telling the British and French soldiers that they are surrounded on every side. When the first gunshot rings out, it grabs your attention and never lets go. I sat back in the film’s grip. I never ordered the drink.

              Dunkirk is the latest film from celebrated director Christopher Nolan, focused on the miraculous evacuation of Allied forces from the French beaches of Dunkirk. We follow British soldiers who experience the event from all different angles. Soldiers on the beach scramble to find a way out of Hell via the Mole, the large breakwater where everyone stands in line in hopes to be the next off the beach. Farrier, played by Tom Hardy, is a part of the air support in an effort to keep German bombers from destroying the ships carrying the evacuees. We also even follow British civilians who hear the call to aid their countrymen and sail from Britain to France. The overall story is told nonlinearly, but all culminates in what is the greatest military retreat of all time.

              There’s not a single bad actor in this movie. Tom Hardy and Mark Rylance are the standouts, with Hardy giving another congested performance much like his 2013 driving-at-the-speed-limit-thriller Locke and Rylance living up to all of his hype in his portrayal of a British civilian who sails to Dunkirk in order to rescue soldiers. (Fun fact, their characters were the only ones whose names I caught.) Kenneth Branagh turns in that quintessential Nolan “older man that inspires” role that is usually reserved for the likes of Michael Caine (who appears briefly as a voice over the radio). Cillian Murphy plays a soldier in the throes of PTSD who plays wonderfully off Rylance’s Mr. Dawson. However, while these hard-hitters impress, no one impresses more than Harry fucking Styles. I never expected to type that sentence in all my life, yet I will stand by it. Styles gives a nuanced take on the psyche of a psychologically strained soldier who has been through the worst of what the battle had to offer. There comes a moment where he is the most threatening presence on the screen. When I initially saw his casting, I groaned. I was worried that Nolan had given in to shock cameos like so many movies seem to as of late. (Disclaimer: Drunk Idiot Reviews thinks that cameos are the lowest form of comedy or entertainment. You may think differently, but Drunk Idiot Reviews will consider you a dingus if you think otherwise.) But this is why he’s the director. Styles nails the role and I hope I can continue to see him in dramatic roles moving forward.

              Hans Zimmer reminds us once again why he is the undisputed king of movie scores. Though there is plenty of schlock that he pushes out, this is not one of them. In fact, it deserves mention among the best of his Nolan scores. The music always builds a tense atmosphere, centered around the motif of a ticking clock. Unlike some of his other Nolan scores, I would say that this never overpowers the movie at any point. It may not be one that you’ll find yourself playing on Youtube after the movie is over, but the movie is elevated by it at every turn. In the final few moments when the clock finally stops ticking, you, much like our main characters, you feel like you can breathe again.

              Nolan takes the best of his Dark Knight sensibilities here with some fantastic stunts. The greatest set piece here is for sure the dogfights over the sea. Hoyte van Hoytama, the director of photography, captures some incredible views of a wide ocean with no land in sight. It’s an incredible depiction of the stressful nature of the air battles and emphasizing how hard it can be to balance gas usage with destroying the enemy. The movie shows some incredible versatility by then transitioning to the sinking of a destroyer hit by a torpedo. The ship fills with water, the soldiers frantically try to find a way out of what has become a death trap, as the guardrails and beams on the outside act almost as a prison for the men within. In fact, the stunts here are incredibly claustrophobic, mostly centering on the possibility of being drowned by the very thing meant to carry these men to safety. The juxtaposition of these types of battles fuel the paranoia-fueled tension of the movie, showing exactly how these soldiers grow more and more desperate.

              When I read some early screening reactions of the film, I saw that many people complained about the noise. This is a LOUD movie from beginning to end for sure. However, I personally felt it added more to the chaotic and stressful environment that the film exists in. This is a movie made for the theater and having it attack your senses is part of the experience.

              Dunkirk is the pinnacle of the movie-going experience. The action, the acting, the score, the story, everything works here. Any shortcomings that Nolan has been criticized for before have been patched up here. No more is the excessive exposition or the incredibly on-the-nose symbolism. The worst thing that you can say about the movie is that there are bits that may be cheesy (according to my father), but after everything these men went through, how could you deny them some cheese? Dunkirk is a story about real heroes that each contributed their small part towards a miracle and Nolan did them justice. And he did it without showing a single Nazi in focus or any gore whatsoever through the entire duration. It’s the best movie of the year without equal; nothing I can say will stress that enough. I just saw it again thirty minutes before I posted this review. Go see it.