Customer Reviews

The Trench

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Set in the run up to the disastrous first day of the 1916 Battle of the Somme, The Trench isn't entirely worthless, but it's not a movie, more a filmed play (despite being written as a movie), and a very poor one at that with that 1970s BBC For Schools television look. The decision to shoot on a soundstage is particularly disastrous, since it never looks like anything but a soundstage, and this despite having a good cinematographer (Tony Pierce-Roberts). The decision to never leave the trench until the final scene doesn't really work, partially because we have no indication of the world that awaits them, but largely because Boyd's finale is just too televisual to have any compensating shock value. The abrupt jump to exterior for the last couple of minutes (and very tame they are too) is very noticeable, the film stocks and looks just not matching at all. Borrowing the final image of Gallipoli as well doesn't help.

Characters constantly explain what they're doing to each other despite having been in the trench for several weeks or months; there's no immediacy, no sense of danger, no sense of having to live in a fetid, claustrophobic open grave. Indeed, it's one of the most comfortable British trenches I've seen, with an absolutely level floor for the most part place. The soft barrage - the quietest I've ever heard for shells landing 700 yards away - doesn't help. Boyd really doesn't have any idea of the possibilities that cinema has to offer, either camera or sound. It's real problem, though, is that ultimately it's a polite, clean and determinedly inoffensive film about a dirty, ugly war.

Pluses are some good performances, most notably Daniel Craig and Paul Nicholls, the latter improving after a bland start to establish a credible screen presence. There are a couple of good scenes, too, but it doesn't really have the ring of truth or authenticity - the mood seems more influenced by hindsight than the actual mood in the run-up to the first day. Not only do you never feel you're there alongside them, but there's no sense of people caught up in, and disposed by the mad rush of a cruel history beyond their control. There's no dread, no fear, just observation. The shortfall between the film Boyd thought he was making and the bland one he did is all too apparent all too often.

The expectations for this film embraced the word, "epic," but all-in-all, this one missed the boat by orders of magnitude. As a film that was likely intended to show the "reality" of life during trench warfare in World War I, it is an utter failure. SO many missed opportunities here! This film came about as close to accurately portraying trench warfare as "Apocalypse Now" did in accurately describing the Vietnam War, which was positively ludicrous. In fact, this film is so bad that it makes the very limited combat scenes and trench warfare vignettes in "Sergeant York" look like an epic.

If you like World War one, you will enjoy this title, but if you are into a real historic view of Trench warfare you will find faults. Acting is solid, but the sets are too clean,even for early in the war. This production seems more stage play, than movie. If you can rent it first, see it before you decide to buy it.

As a film, it's a weak jumble of poor directing, and I feel bad for the actors, many of whom gave earnest performances, but bad directing can make even the best look foolish. WHERE THIS FILM SHINES, is the costuming and the construction details of the trenches and bunkers. If you're in the theatre and you are dealing with a period piece, watch this for the uniforms and the sets.

The Bottom Line:

A thoroughly mediocre war film that doesn't attempt to rise above the conventions of the genre, The Trench may satisfy the cravings of Great War buffs (their war being sadly underrepresented next to WWII) but if you've seen a war movie or two you're likely to be underwhelmed by this rather tired genre offering.

3/4

An enormous waste of money! The director of this mess put a bunch of spoiled unlikeable kids from today into nice clean trenches and called it the Battle of the Somme. I kept waiting and waiting for the characters to get on with it, but they just kept talking and talking in incomprehensible accents (no subtitles provided). None of them appeared to have any military training at all and none of them even got dirty. When the great final attack finally happened, it was just a couple dozen guys walking in a pretty green field with the occasional explosion and when somebody was hit, there was little "whifft" sound and the audience was treated to a slow-motion or a stop-frame "death".

Message to film makers with no combat experience: bullets make a loud bang when they hit somebody, sounding a lot like a pine board breaking. I've heard a lot of gunfire in my life and it never went "whifft". The guy who directed this thing ought to be barred from film making until he serves in some rifle company for a couple of years as penance. Wish I could get my money back and the time I wasted watching this "movie".

I was not disappointed in this production at all as I went in not knowing what was in store for me, or the boys in the trench. The film is set bound with in the British trenches of World War I and this adds to the claustrophobia of the situation. For me this tale was a nail bitter in that I knew that anything could happen at any moment. Death is stalking these boys and has been for so long that some are in a quiet panic, other numbed by his presence with them in the trenches. Death has become a bunkmate, a drinking buddy, and the one who shows you the naughty French postcards.

A fine ensemble of actors is gathered here and under the whizzing flairs and constant distant booming of artillery they do some wonderful work on screen. And again Mr. Daniel Craig brings something wonderful to the table as a hardened Sergeant who knows that he must keep his boys busy to keep them sane. It is a pleasure to watch him particularly in the "Jam" scene. The range of emotion he shows at the beginning of the scene when the boys can't see him as he eats from a jar of homemade jam sent by his wife is stunning and real, near tears he shoves the jam in his mouth as if to stuff down his impossible sorrow. Watch as this brilliant actor moves on to offer some jam to his superior officer. This is brilliant work by an actor who even in 1999 and early on in his career had a grasp of what it is to be a multi faceted human being and the talent to project that onto the screen. Daniel Craig is one of the best there is in world cinema.

The film is well worth seeing for these reasons and many more. At times very graphic and violent and still deeply touching and sad beyond the deepest wounds of war and the human heart.