1999
5.5
4.7K
views
saved
Trailers/Videos
The Trench
1999
5.5
4.7K
views
saved
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The Trench tells the story of a group of young British soldiers on the eve of the Battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916, the worst defeat in British military history. Against this ill-fated backdrop, the movie depicts the soldiers' experience as a mixture of boredom, fear, panic, and restlessness, confined to a trench on the front lines.
Countries:
GB, US
Languages:
German, English
Runtime:
1hrs 38min
Status:
Released
Release date:
1999-09-17
Release format:
Streaming
— Nov 08, 2007
Trying to take into account this was a 1999 film, I'm still not impressed. The acting was okay, but I'm not sure if it's not the very fake looking sets and piss poor lighting choices for the scenes. It just didn't ring as believable as any moment during the film as a result. The faces were too clean, the sides of the trench were not muddy, the wooden slats all pristine, the uniforms, etc etc etc.
While I can see the director must have been going after what old black and white movies of the 1930s might have conveyed, the colorization looking like it was trying to "create" the piss poor addition of color perhaps, it just emphasizes the cheap efforts on the sets themselves. Had he gone with B&W film, I think the lighting, even the awful sets would've worked fine. Then perhaps we have a movie, but as it stood, this clown version in color just made it difficult to take the story seriously.
The ending leaves a lot to be desired also. The Sargent's last scene feels like it should've been dragged out a little bit more. The film is short as hell so why they didn't is anyone's guess.
I think I'd like to see it in black and white, maybe then the lighting would work and the film would feel less like a cartoon and more like an old timey movie. That might bounce it up to a 7.
As it stands, a 4.7 at best.