“Dunkirk” focuses on a particularly bleak period of war history as the Nazis appeared to have the British on the backfoot. This an emotive film from director Christopher Nolan (“The Prestige”, “The Dark Knight”) and it is very impressive but I question some of the narrative decisions as well as the casting choices.

As the Nazis continue to advance and France is effectively lost, hundreds of thousands of British soldiers line the beaches of Dunkirk, waiting to be taken home. Both military and civilian vessels set sail to evacuate as many troops as possible so that Great Britain can stand any chance of defending itself from a Nazi invasion.

The film decides to show the evacuation from multiple perspectives and while that would be fine, the constant back and forth can make it hard for us to relate to any of the characters. Kenneth Branagh (“Henry V”) is really good as Commander Bolton. Cillian Murphy (“Red Eye”) and Tom Hardy (“Bronson”) are both okay but I feel the constant back and forth made it too difficult for me to really invest in them. Most of the other performances are mediocre but there is one that sticks out as terrible and it comes from Harry Styles… the pop star. Whoever decided to cast him must surely have been doing it as a joke.

“Dunkirk” features some scenes that made me feel a real sense of British pride so it was definitely doing something right. Like many of the really good war movies, “Dunkirk” provides battle sequences that are brutal and while much of it may seem incredibly bleak, it ends with a sense of triumph that feels so appropriate given the mighty task that was dealt with so magnificently by British forces and civilians alike. Christopher Nolan has proved that he can tackle the war genre with “Dunkirk” and I think you should check it out.