No Time To Die.
119 Mins. Starring: George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, Mark Strong, Colin Firth & Benedict Cumberbatch. Director: Sam Mendes.
Trench warfare captured in cinema has never been this immersive and Bond ('Skyfall' and 'Spectre'), 'American Beauty', 'Revolutionary Road', 'Road To Perdition' and 'Jarhead' director Sam Mendes had one shot in which to do it. The dynamic directorial technique for auteur artists of the film form has made for iconic moviemaking moments in everything from 'London Has Fallen' to HBO shows like 'True Detective' and of course most come to mind recently that Marvel 'Daredevil' prison break. Even whole movies like the Oscar winning 'Birdman: Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance'. But none have technically been as ambitious or awe inspiring as this. Taking you as boots in the mud ground closest to the first World War as you could this side of a Peter Jackson restored 'They Shall Not Grow Old' documentary film in living colour. But it's no filmmaking camera gimmick. More something to make you feel and appreciate almost exactly what these young men literally went through. All the mud and blood, bodies and bullets that this war made and gave. Showing that the price of freedom is far too high when it's measured in the casualty of youth and innocence. Mendes with Cumberbatch, Madden, Strong, Firth. These are the legendary names (especially with war films) in this movie, but it's the young actors who are the star of the show and show us exactly this. Netflix's Chalamet crowning 'The King' and the Bruce Springsteen inspired 'Blinded By The Light' scene stealer Dean-Charles Chapman and 'Captain Fantastic' star George MacKay on the movie moment of their young lives. Although nothing stands out more in this picture than the harrowing nature of war itself. This is the movies message like one sent from this director's short story grandfather Alfred Mendes, signed, sealed and delivered like a traditional telegram. Stop. Remember.
'1917' like 'Dunkirk' or George Clooney's recent run from 'The Monuments Men' old Ocean ensemble assemble, to Joseph Heller's novel 'Catch-22' miniseries adaptation takes it back to the traditional textures of wartime like a green beret. As Hollywood moves away from the 'Zero Dark Thirty', 'Lone Survivor' or 'Jarhead' modern warfare machine right when we may be on the call of duty cusp and brink of another World War from the ridge to the breach all because of the dictator acting, no President of mine, Trump (IMPEACH). 1917 showed the best and worst war brought out of people, from inglorious basterds to a band of brothers. And '1917' just like Christopher Nolan's 'Dunkirk' (check out the 'Rewatchables' Ringer video of 'Basterds' director Quentin Tarantino's calling it one of his personal best of the 10's) may not only be one of the best British war movies in history like 'The Bridge Over The River Kwai', but the greatest war films of all time from Steven Speilberg's 'Saving Private Ryan' to Clint Eastwood's 'Letters From Iwo Jima' and many more beyond the lines. Moving away from the ultraviolence today of Mel Gibson's 'Hacksaw Ridge' and David Ayer's suicide squad of the tank injected 'Fury', this is also a far cry away from the stylistic classics of Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' or Kubrick's 'Full Metal Jacket'. More like 'A Bridge Too Far', Mendes Nineteen Seventeen movie is a sincere and subtle yet emotive and engaging picture that will surely comes with a best this Bafta and Oscar season. As epic as it is compelling. Chapman running down the line in the opposite direction of a wave of soldiers rising once more unto the breach, with gunfire and explosions igniting all around them and him will remain one of the most idleible moments in filmmaking history this decade and century beyond once more for the cinematic canon. They say time is the enemy in this movie that moves like the Hans Zimmer sand ticking of 'Dunkirk', but this time with the 'American Beauty' and 'Revolutionary Road' like perfect piano score of Thomas Newman. So you know why MacKay and Chapman are racing against it trying to deliver a folded letter in their uniforms breast pocket as flags are folding all around them for queen and country. This is no time to die from the 007 director with a license to kill.
Fixed bayonets and their wits are all these boys are armed with as they try to deliver a message in a bottleneck of rats, poison, shells, booby-traps, dust and rubble. All with puddles of stagnant water and rotting earth surrounding and bogging them down. As they take a message as their mission to stop an attack that is a trap, they cross no man's land for the first time without the camera blinking and you're right there with them. Immersed and engrossed. Especially if you're on the first night, front row of this continuous take epic. The eerie Alcatraz like fog foreboding as their helmets peek above to all this light mist and jagged barbed wire lying in wait with the still soldiers that remain their like ashes to earth's dust in histories memory. From snipers looking to pick them off, to spitfires like wasps swarming above in a dogfight, this film envelopes its actors and us in all the elements of war with one moment on a 'Saving Private Ryan', "wait...wait" level of heartbreak that evokes every emotion. Chapman and MacKay bring it all and their best, honouring the brightest. Whilst 'Sherlock's' Moriarty and 'Fleabag' Hot Priest, Andrew Scott and 'Bodyguard' and 'Rocketman' star Richard Madden bring bitter hilarity and bittersweet heart respectively. Whereas an always reliable, Great Brit veteran Mark Strong (another 'Sherlock Holmes' villain) and the January Oscar/Bafta national treasure Colin Firth give brief but brilliant turns (think a young Harrison Ford in 'Apocalypse Now'). But it is a scarred 'Sherlock' himself Benedict Cumberbatch with something afoot down in the art of war, command centre bunkering trenches. The best of British bringing more than his famous Baker Street sleuth or Sorcerer Supreme, 'Doctor Strange'. As the 'War Horse' actor is much more than Marvel, showing these type of war movies are his "be brave" bread and butter like 'Hamlet'. The way he utters that war only ends one way, "last man standing" will remain one of the simple but pure, purely simple quotes to draw from the already is and will be vast cinematic career. But it is our two leads, George and Dean that deserve the acting medals that are still just tin in relation to the real heroes and again this movie is more than a name to drop, or style to hone like it was your own. Soon you forget about the one continuous shot technique that pirouettes around cramped and claustrophobic trenches like a last waltz and moves in one moment like the 'War Horse', West End ballet of beauty amongst all the brutality with operatic shadows from the flares and fires that work from dusk 'till dawn. And the beginning to end bordering delicate flowers in bloom like the beautiful blossom that remind you of the moving final frame of the BBC comedy, 'Blackadder Goes Fourth' that we could never forget. More than a century later we already have one of the greatest movies-certainly the most cinematography creative-of the twenty first centuries 20's...and we're not even a full fortnight into the new decade. But '1917' roaring like the twenties that came a holy trinity of calenders after it shows that the real story to remember is the real one that happened over 100 years ago. Lest we forget. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Further Filming: 'Dunkirk', 'Journeys End', 'Skyfall'.
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