The Trench

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99% of the movie they were just in the trench... you only hear sounds of bombs dropping no action at all. if you are looking for a war movie bro this isn't the one at all.

99% of this movie they were just in the trench.. you only hear sounds of bombs dropping... if you want to see a war movie bro this isn't the one at all

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source: The Trench

I watched this film just now, and was very surprised not to hear one single Irish accent. All the accents I heard were English bar one Scot. And yet the Battle is known for the senseless sacrifice of such a great number of Irishmen - from the 36th (Ulster) Division and the 16th (Irish) Division. The Ulster Division, made from the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, Royal Ulster Rifles and Royal Irish Fusiliers, as I understand it, "suffered some five and a half thousand casualties - out of a total divisional complement of ten or eleven thousand men. (In writing of "casualties" it is a generally accepted assumption that one out of every three was killed or died of wounds later)." So, although I missed some of the film due to a rush to the hospital before it started, I was very surprised not to have heard any Irish accents from the point I started watching it. As a film it seemed average.

I tend to agree with most comments about this film, which I only caught up with recently. The acting is decent, but the script, the set, the anachronistic swearing and the general lack of any feel for the time makes it difficult to watch without sighing heavily. I mainly decided to comment because I scrolled down to find a comment from someone in New York who says this was 'a conventional continuation of the British obsession with World War I as being the most symbolic war'. I wouldn't disagree with that, but she then mentions three films to back up this view: All Quiet on the Western Front (an American film based on a novel by a German, about the German army), Paths of Glory (a film made by an American about the French army) and Gallipoli (made by an Australian about the Australian experience in the Dardanelles). I do think we see this war as symbolic here in the UK, but I don't think we're the only ones.

This movie is an unusual type of war movie. 99% of the movie is shot inside of this 8 foot wide, 600 mile long trench, filled with British soldiers just only becoming men. It has a sense of claustistiphobia, and itensity among young men that are practically scared to death about the world around them, and every little thing counts. This movie was very intense, and you couldn't take your eyes off it for a moment. 8.8 out of 10.

This was part of Channel 4's Lost Generation First World War season, and it was a huge mistake to show this so soon after their own very good drama-doc about the Somme. It was a mistake to show it at all. Novelist William Boyd is a terrible film director and screenwriter who has no real grip on his subject. Instead of taking a fresh look at the run up to the battle, he uses every old cliché you've seen before in the lips of every old stereotype you've seen before. Most of the cast are so bad I've forgotten their names. Only Daniel Craig and Julian Rhind Tutt come out with any credit. Very badly photographed too, with the trench clearly an interior and far too clean. Just terrible. Channel 4 should have shown something like ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, which hasn't been on telly in years.

It's heart might be in the right place, but this tepid misfire looks like a bad TV schools production in every way. The 'exteriors' are obviously interior studio sets, and not very convincing ones. It's so badly lit that when the film finally goes outdoors to rip off the end of Gallipoli (which it does incredibly badly, like everything else) the change of film stock is so jarring it hurts. The characters are childish stereotypes talking in unbelievable clichés and the film is frequently just plain wrong about details and attitudes of the average WW1 Tommy: politically correct, maybe, but historically it's a travesty (no Mr Boyd, officers DID go over the top: the highest percentage of casualties was officers, and even many generals died in battle). But more than being badly directed, looking cheap, getting its facts wrong and going with every cliché Boyd can find, it's biggest sin is that it's just so bloody boring. Bad on every level. WW1 was a terrible tragedy, and those who died in it deserve better than this terrible, terrible film.