Dunkirk
Dunkirk
| 18 February 2004 (USA)
Dunkirk Trailers

Dunkirk is a 2004 BBC television docudrama about the Battle of Dunkirk and the Dunkirk evacuation in World War II.

Reviews
StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life
Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
boblin2-1 I watched this dramatization some years back and thought it did an excellent job of telling the real-life story, capturing the desperation of the retreat, case in point, only smoke bombs for one group of soldiers tasked with holding back the German tanks!Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD if you can find it. Perhaps its also downloadable. Its well worth the time spent watching it.After watching this re-enactment, I found Nolan's 2017 Dunkirk to be an utter disappointment. It greatly saddened me to see how the Dunkirk story could be so badly told, and more so when I read reviews about how it gives you a sense of what war is like - rubbish. These people really should watch the 2004 Dunkirk dramatization and Saving Private Ryan, and I'd also recommend Schindler's List.
malcolmgsw BBC have decided to show this abysmal effort again.The kindest thing that they could have done is dumped the whole mess in the Channel and forgotten about it.I do not know what possessed them to allow this to be transmitted in its present form.I do not recall a programme where the camera work and "music" was so distracting that it detracted so much from the subject.All i was thinking was why such a ridiculous camera angle was being used.Or wont that dreadful "Music" stop so that we can hear what is being said.The idea of incorporating black and white newsreels with colour footage went out with zero budget war films in the 60s.As far as i am concerned "Dunkirk" made by Michael Balcon and starring John Mills is far better in every respect.I just hope that the person who commissioned this meretricious rubbish is never allowed near the schedules again.
bridget-13 The show is a docudrama using original film footage from the 1940's, the true stories of soldiers from the British Army, and adding written drama to tell the story of Dunkirk. Actors took the part of the ordinary soldiers, army officers and government officials, including Winston Churchill, and the whole had intense and dramatic narration by Timothy Dalton. I thought the idea of taking real stories and making a show with the old film and narration was a good one. I have no objection to black and white footage, indeed I found it added to the interest and drama. However, I found the show unwatchable owing to the director's idea of adding immediacy by fancy camera angles and jiggling the camera about. Good dialog and direction added to the superb acting here make this unnecessary. It was ghastly to watch and made me seasick even before the boats arrived. What a waste of good ideas and a great story.
BusyBusey After seeing the BBC Adverts for "Dunkirk" i was honestly looking forward to seeing this Docu-Drama showing us the events leading up to and the evacuation of over 300,000 British,Belgian and French troops from the beaches at "Dunkirk".It must have only been 10 minutes into the first episode of the Three part series that i began to feel let down by a programme that at best i can only describe as OK.With the BBC's experience of helping to make "Band of Brothers" and resources that should have been made available for such a project,OK just isnt good enough. Did the BBC not think that showing black and white stock footage of Stuka dive bombers and German soldiers might impede the viewers ability to actually feel like they were there with there soldiers.The whole thing contradicted itself,make a Docu-Drama for realism then show old footage(in black and white!) Germans Aircraft and Troops? Just as i found myself getting into "Dunkirk" some stock footage would pop up,presumedly just to remind the viewer that the non black and white images arent actually real,which of course is true but thats not the point. The use of stock footage only showed me that this is a Low budget programme and it didnt take long before my thoughts were confirmed. As in one of the so called "Action" scenes a dozen or so British soldiers are attacked by around 7 German troops and some Tank Tracks.Bizarrly as soon as the Officer sees those Tank Tracks he orders his men to surrender giving the impression that they fought for around 2 mins before giving up.Now this is annoying(even if you do ignore the lack of an actual Tank) because in reality one of the reasons those men were taken to the barn and executed was because they had fought stubbornly and inflicted heavy casualties on the SS soldiers they faced.The German Commander(Moltke) was annoyed by this and the British troops payed a terrible price for their stubborn fighting.Overall i thought "Dunkirk" was badly let down by its (obviously)Low budget.As it was made by the BBC it really shouldnt have been so cheaply made,is this all our Veterans deserved?. The BBC might do well to bare this in mind for future projects,if youre not going to do it properly then dont do it at all.