The “miracle of deliverance” at Dunkirk, as characterized by newly appointed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1940, was so called because “only” 68,000 British soldiers were killed or captured during the battle and subsequent retreat from France. For writer/director Christopher Nolan to pack this historical event into a mere hour and three quarters of screen time is impressive. That the narrative not only holds water but creates tension thick enough to cut with a bayonet – well, that must count as a filmmaking miracle itself. Cillian Murphy plays a shell-shocked survivor of a U-Boat attack, whose desperate desire not to return to Dunkirk triggers a tragedy. The next time they took to the Channel in such numbers, June 6, 1944, they’d be headed the other way.

Source: National Post July 20, 2017 18:56 UTC