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116 of 126 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Disappointment, April 17, 2003
This review is from: The Trench (DVD)
The first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 - the bloodiest day in British military history - deserves a detailed portrayal on film. Unfortunately, The Trench is not that film. The Trench is a standard "small group" portrayal of a British infantry platoon in the forward trenches during the three days leading up to the British attack. As films in the war genre go, this film is not very original and even hackneyed at times. Indeed, the film's ending is reminiscent of Gallipoli with Mel Gibson, although not as well done. The film also has basic problems with character development, plot evolution and historical background. Overall, this film is passable if you have a great interest in the First World War (but you will likely be let down) but quite boring and even incomprehensible if you do not. Unfortunately, the director of The Trench did not feel that character development is particularly important and the viewer is presented with a bunch of stock characters that never gain much definition. The main characters (by type) are: the young, rookie private; the older, experienced sergeant; the weak lieutenant; the disgruntled soldier; the jerk; and the fat, optimistic soldier. The viewer learns precious little about these characters, other than that they generally interact poorly with each other. Indeed, there is very little indication of friendship, cooperation or comradeship that make a real military unit work. It would have been nice to get some background on where these troops come from and how much combat experience they had, but the director almost presents them as ciphers. One of the more interesting aspects of the Battle of the Somme was the character of the British "Pals" battalions, formed from tight social groups like rugby teams or clerks back in England. A "Pals" battalion would have been much more interesting than this near-dysfunctional team. The plot is also a major problem with The Trench because there is so little of it. Most of the film focuses on the 72 hours prior to the attack and is thus anticipatory in nature. While there is one small night raid into No Mans Land, a brief artillery bombardment and a sniper attack, much of the film is quite slow. Indeed, the director wastes an incredible amount of time on two ridiculous but inter-related subjects: a stolen pornographic postcard and the young private mooning over an Irish waitress whom he met briefly before shipping out. Clearly, the director has no idea how to sequence a dramatic film and he appears to stuff anything handy - however absurd - into the cracks. Furthermore, the director is unable to bring out the kind of tension that exists prior to a big attack - which Gallipoli did so well. Even the "big" attack at the end is a major disappointment. A&E's "Lost Battalion" last year had for more convincing scenes of trench warfare than "The Trench's" limp attack at the end. We see perhaps 50-60 troops marching across a green meadow that lacks a single shell crater, uphill (!), against a German line that seems to consist of a single row of barbed wire. Apparently, there wasn't much budget for extras, location or special effects. Given that this was the largest single attack ever launched by the British Army, this film's depiction of it appears to minimize a great and tragic event. Instead of seeing rows of British troops mowed down (and like Spielberg's Private Ryan, this film should have made some effort to show what the attack looked like from the German side), we see individuals go down.
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43 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
for what it is, it was pretty good, February 9, 2005
This review is from: The Trench (DVD)
Reading the other reviews here, I had to post one myself to defend it. The movie has its problems, but some of the complaints are unjustified.
To say the ending was a rip-off of some other war movie is just silly -- how else could it have ended? This was the Somme. You don't make a movie about the first day of the Somme if you want anything other than a massacre.
To the person complaining about No Man's Land being a grassy meadow. There was a place called Serre where the attacking British DID cross a grassy meadow. The grass was so long, as the wounded men fell, some of the others thought there'd been an order to get down, and so they did too, only to find the others wounded or dead.
To the guy complaining about the lack of homoerotic content, all I can say is, oh well. Not everything's always about sex.
Movies about battles like this, you can look at from a big picture perspective or you can zoom in for a close look at a group of individuals. This movie goes for the close-up. It's not trying to be anything else. This is a movie about the strain of the long hours waiting for a major offensive to begin, for a bunch of young guys, most of whom were new to the war. It's dumb to criticize it for failing to be something else. I thought it did a pretty good job of portraying the situation. The boredom, the fear, how difficult it would be to sleep or eat or turn off your brain during those long hours. The ways the men might snipe at one another over little things due to frayed nerves. The relationship between the men, the sergeant and the lieutenant was subtle but I think well-done.
My complaints are that it goes about a half hour too long. The trench looked mighty tidy to me too. I had trouble believing that a shell big enough to blow 2 men to bits wouldn't have done more damage to the structure of the trench there.
Also most of these guys would have known each other from civilian life; the British army had a lot of "Pals Battalions" where guys from the same village or area joined up and served together. Most of these guys should have known one another.
I am pretty sure I saw a guy light a cigarette with a Bic-type lighter and I'm pretty sure they would not have had something like that.
I think for a look at "trench life" for a bunch of newbies about to go over the top for the first time, it was pretty good.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Well-intentioned but inept, July 2, 2005
This review is from: The Trench (DVD)
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.
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