I watch a lot of movies. Most of them aren’t very good. Most of them are trying to be modern in their cinematic qualities and the stories have all the little things in them that the screenwriting books tell us must be included. They always add in the save the cat moments to make our hero seem likable. They have the sex at sixty or the love scene comes about the sixty-minute/page mark. When the hero finds himself in a position that feels impassable and all is lost, that is a screenwriting trope. The list goes on and on and sometimes it isn’t actually a good thing to see that every one of them is in the movie. Usually, that means it was written by someone that has lost their way when it comes to telling a good story.

I am going into massive spoilers with this blog about the movie “1917”, you have been warned.

The movie is doing well with nominations this year. It is a good movie. However, it isn’t a great movie. The story is all about the plot and not about the characters. In fact, it must be noted that the main character isn’t who we think is it. The character we begin following is killed in the first half of the film. The other character, George MacKay as Lance Corporal Schofield, is quiet and argumentative. Schofield (MacKay) is not empathetic and really is overshadowed by Dean-Charles Chapman (Lance Corporal Blake) until his death at the hands of a German Bi-Plane Pilot.

Blake (Chapman) begins the film by volunteering his friend for a special project. Schofield has seen up-close combat, supposedly, and his friend has not. Given the task of getting orders from the General to the front lines to fall back and call off a misguided attack by Col. Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch) as the Germans fall back to a more substantial position to ambush the entire section of the British Army. To do so, they must pass through “no man's land,” the abandoned fortifications of the Germans, and weed their way through dastardly non-descript German soldiers who have no other reason to exist than to kill whoever is dressed as a soldier playing for the opposite team. And that’s about it for the story, plot and anything else that you can think of.

I am not saying that the story isn’t right. It is a good story and you are on the edge of your seat at the beginning. Every scene has the pre-requisite amount of tension and all the boxes are checked. That is unless you have a yearning for characters who do things that have nothing to do with the plot but everything to do with the story, like me.

I will concede, after watching an interview with the Director/Writer Sam Mendes, this was completely intentional. He stated that he kept the characters obtuse and unfleshed out to keep the tension up. I agree that it worked but in the end, I was left with nothing. Maybe that’s the point? Perhaps it is his way of commenting on what war can be and what it takes from individuals to be executed correctly. I can see the point and it does make a statement. But, sometimes, the statement you want to make, or the theme you want to get across, shouldn’t be the only reason for the story. Not saying that was his “theme” and it is more of an observation on directing in general, I would suppose.

The movie is shot exceptionally well. I enjoyed ninety-five percent of the shots and set up. I especially love the one-shot, one-take way they did most of the film. It is very compelling and demands respect as it’s the most technically challenging thing to film. I thought they had to be using a boom or crane on a vehicle to get the shots of the two men going down into craters that must have been twelve to fifteen feet deep without having any camera shake, and they did exactly that. Pretty cool if you ask me.

I found most of the sets believable except for the number of dead bodies lying and floating around. In those days they would call front line cease-fires for Collecting the dead and wounded. Chivalry was something that all the armies followed, for the most part. The dead loitering everywhere is really an embellishment of the director to horrify the viewer. Other intricacies of the film can be called into question, I suppose, but they really aren’t anything that takes away from the film itself.

What does take away from the film is the number of writing tropes they threw into it. Since it doesn’t actually tell a real story and just shows you the plot with no character growth from anyone on screen, I suppose the more mechanisms it can put into place, the better.

The first, and most apparent, mechanism this movie uses (well, not that obvious since it happens in the second act instead of the first) is the reluctant hero. Our main man Schofield (MacKay) tries to get Blake (Chapman) to wait until dark before heading out on their mission. He beleaguers the point, over and over again, until they top the trench and begin their trek. Then he tries to stall his friend and hapless leader when they find some rations left behind by the Germans. Of course, this is a trap meant to bottleneck the invading soldiers so they will get caught in a tunnel collapse when they gather to eat. Our hero, who we have yet to discover is the hero, barely escapes while his cohort is none the less for wear.

Not to let the point go, the screenplay then has Schofield ask why Blake choose him and not someone else. In retrospect, as I sit here typing, this is the most exposition of the entire film. Then, it goes away and never comes back.

At one point in the film, I almost fell asleep. No, really. I was so bored with what I was watching; it took everything I had to keep from snoring in the theater. Schofield, now on his own to complete the mission, has come to the town just outside the forest where the Colonel is preparing for the imperiled attack our hero has been charged with stopping. He is chased by a random darkly shrouded German Soldier into a small room with a fire burning. Schofield has managed to evade the German but finds himself presented with a pretty young French woman who has hidden there with a child. Schofield questions the woman and, in broken English accompanied by subtitles tells him that the child isn’t hers and that she randomly just found the fat baby (that isn’t an exaggeration, this baby is HUGE). He has a moment with her and then leaves to complete his mission.

This entire scene is something that I would have thrown out of my own movie as it has nothing to do with anything. Just an attempt at character building in a way that is utterly useless to the narrative we are watching. If you cut this entire scene from the movie, you have lost nothing. It is there because of the trope and mechanical tool that is called “sex at sixty.” It does nothing for our character and nothing for our movie. It also what clued me in to what the screenwriter was doing to make this story work. Then all the bells went off and I knew what, why and where everything happened as well as what to expect next. Essentially the movie ended for me during that scene and explained why I was trying not to saw an entire forest of knotted pine from my seat or at least sound like I was.

Overall, 1917 is a good film. Where it lacks in character everything, it makes up for in its artistry. The dialogue doesn’t miscarry and the characters seem mostly true; Schofield even has a mentor during one scene. The setting is bleak, as it should be and the war is represented in a mostly accurate way. The performances are strong. Albeit why wouldn’t they be when there is little dialogue once Lance Corporal Blake is killed.

Does it deserve Oscars for acting? I would bet there are better performances this year. Should it be given an award for the best screenplay? An absolute no. Cinematography, Most definitely.