re: It's clear... Dunkirk is fricked this award season...

There were 400K people on that beach. For whatever reason, Nolan decided showing about 500 was enough.

Historical estimates range from 800-1000 private boats came to the rescue. It was incredibly brave and dramatic, overwhelming really. For whatever reason, Nolan thought showing 5 boats coming to the rescue would suffice.

It was a bit of a letdown. I understand if he didn’t want to use cgi, I’m for that philosophy. But he couldn’t find it in the budget or think it necessary to rent maybe at least 50 boats? Maybe hire an extra thousand extras to stand and sit on the beach?

No sense of the fight and desperation to hold the Germans back, only a minute token scene at the beginning where you see 3 or so Brits manning a nest. I never got that sense of urgency or panic to get out of there; there never seemed to be a sense that the lines could break at any moment. We sure didn’t see it.

Now Saving Private Ryan and the D-Day beach scene, it had urgency, uncertainty, panic, overwhelming and impending danger, violence, desperation, savagery. Frankly, it blows Dunkirk out of the water, no pun intended.

I loved the performances, the sound, the cinematography of it. And I did like it. It’s a good, not great, movie. There are bits in there where it gets close to the cusp of reaching greatness. But it failed to meet its mark. I thought Nolan could have and should have done better.