Movie-TV Show Reviews. 1917.

I am a great lover of WW movies and I have to say this Movie was well done, the Storyline was amazing and the acting superb.

Sam Mendes’s 2019 war epic, 1917, is less a traditional film and more a feat of cinematic endurance. Following two young British soldiers, Lance Corporals Schofield and Blake, as they traverse enemy territory during the height of World War I to deliver a critical message, the movie is a relentless, visceral experience. Its central gimmick—the illusion that the entire film is presented as one continuous, unbroken shot—is not merely a technical flourish; it is the fundamental structure that drives the film’s tension and immersion.

The plot is deceptively simple: deliver a message that will save 1,600 men from walking into a German trap. This simplicity allows the audience to focus entirely on the journey. George MacKay (Schofield) and Dean-Charles Chapman (Blake) deliver compelling performances, with MacKay, in particular, embodying the exhaustion, fear, and reluctant heroism required for the mission. The emotional core rests on their camaraderie and the brutal realization of the conflict’s true cost, making the massive scope feel intimately personal.

Technically, 1917 is flawless. Cinematographer Roger Deakins utilizes the “one-shot” technique brilliantly, transforming the screen into a direct window onto the trenches and devastated French landscape. We are forced to move at the soldiers’ pace—crawling through muck, sprinting across open fields, and ducking into ruined villages. The effect is suffocatingly immediate; there is no break, no relief, only the constant forward momentum. Standout sequences, such as Schofield’s terrifying sprint through the burning ruins of Écoust, feel less like cinema and more like a fever dream of chaos and destruction.

While some might argue the characters are lightly sketched, the film’s purpose is not to deliver deep character studies, but rather to show the raw human effort against insurmountable odds. The focus is on the mission, the moment, and the environment. This relentless focus on the present tense makes the film a profound and unforgettable statement on the grim reality of trench warfare.

Conclusion: 1917 is a necessary cinematic achievement. It’s an exhausting, breathtaking, and essential piece of filmmaking that uses groundbreaking technique to reinforce, rather than distract from, its emotional message. It deserves its place as one of the definitive war films of its generation.

An absolutely brilliant Film worth a watch.