1917

I had high expectations for this film, but ended up disappointed, as happens so often with films. I do worry that there are common factors that make many modern films problematic – some of which I cannot mention due to the reaction I would receive from certain quarters. Nevertheless, I found myself continuously disappointed with the film. Here is a list of some of the problems I had with it:

• What was the point of the film? A unit could be contacted in a number of ways despite having telephone lines cut – and why send the brother of one of the officers in that unit? And later another unit is going the same way. They could have told them. The plotline was as ridiculous as Saving Private Ryan
• walking through a front line trench without fire steps
• dugouts on both the British and German sides at ground level rather than dug deeply into the ground
• Not enough booby traps on the ground where the Germans had retreated, and when they finally came across one, a tripwire, there was an explosion that failed to injure either soldier, though they were both close to the tripwire, and then the dugout (on the surface remember) gradually collapsed like something out of one of those shoddy Harrison Ford archeology films
• German artillery within about 100m of the front line. Also not impressed that they had not recycled their shellcases, this was 1917 and they had huge shortages
• Perfectly untouched fields just behind the front line
• Your friend gets stabbed in the guts so you try and twist him around and pick him up? No wonder he died.
• A huge waterfall on the Somme battlefield along with rapids? Sorry, I have been around that area quite a lot and there is nothing like that. A totally spurious scene. And it was the Somme, there was mention of Bapaume.
• Token black actors among the soldiers. While many coloured troops fought in the war they would not have been individuals in the Devons. They would more likely be French colonial units
• British soldiers in a forward line that had only become a forward line no more than two days before. The trenches were huge, clearly dug by a JCB, and clean. The wrong shape of course but nothing can be right in this film
• All of the German fire came from artillery in the final attack. Where were the machine guns? Far more common and far more effective at killing large numbers of soldiers
• A Casualty Clearing Station 100m or so behind the front line? Really? Not only a CCS but it also had a mess tent. That would be pleasant next to the damaged soldiers
• Endless boring scenes that needed serious editing
• Dreadful music that tried to make out I was watching an epic.

That is probably enough. The film was as bad as Dunkirk. I am not sure why these war films are so bad at the moment, but clearly there are issues around historical inaccuracy.