La trinchera

Who would choose to make their debut a WWI character piece set within the confines of one trench? For his first directorial effort William Boyd has not tried to run before he can walk, and Paul Nicholls in his first released feature plays a role he clearly empathises with.

The relative inexperience of Boyd is evident in the modesty of the production - no expensive effects, no epic locations - but that actually works well in this study of young men trying to cope with the unthinkable horror that characterised the World War One battlefield.

Cooped up for days in dreadful conditions, the various characters - the naive (Nicholls), the intellectual (D'Arcy), the objectionable (Dyer), the loveable fattie (Strachan) - at turns argue with and provide support for each other, but at the end of the day have to face almost certain death on their own and in their own way.

This is not a great film, it doesn't quite provide a strong enough focus to help you empathise with the characters, for the most part it feels like a filmed play, but as a film it is able to provide moments of real visual power such as the final scenes as the boys finally leave the trenches to face the German guns.

For those last few minutes, the realisation of what they are about to do hits you hard, you can really sense the terror that they must have felt.

Despite it's "theatrical" feel at times, and the constraints of its setting, this is a fine and evocative film, with an excellent cast. Paul Nicholls, Danny Dyer and James D'Arcy are not alone in giving faultless performances, but the star of the film must be Daniel Craig, who is superb as Sgt Winter, a man who has survived the battlefield once, but knows his luck is about to run out.

I am confident that I have never before started a review by complimenting the set designers. Comparing the vintage still photos of soldiers in World War I trenches shown at the beginning of the movie to the trenches in film itself, you can see that somebody with an eye for detail recreated the look of the trench and the costume designers did a good job with the men's uniforms. The bad news is that that is one of this movie's few strong points. For example, the view of no man's land (NML) - the ground between the opposing trenches - shows a green field. It should look like a brown, pock-marked wasteland, which has been captured in many other WW I movies.

The whole effect of "The Trench" is that of a filmed stage play. It could easily be transferred to the stage without losing much and maybe even gaining something. That is to say, the movie is not opened up much. Still, as a WW I buff, I enjoyed it.

The actors are good, and the outline of the story is illustrative of typical situations in the war. However, the specific dialogue might be a little too 1999 rather than 1916. The film does remind us that wars are fought by men who are still boys and concerned about the things young men are obsessed by.

One general situation that jumps out is the promise to the men that they would go into the enemy trenches after bombardment and after previous waves of a British attack and would not encounter any living enemy. (Mopping up, as my WW-II-veteran father called it.) But this was a typical false promise of the strategy used by both sides because the defenders would always cover themselves adequately so a majority would survive the bombardment, and they would almost always be able to get reinforcements into the trenches faster than attackers could make it across NML, and the preliminary bombardment would 1) warn the defenders an attack was coming and 2) chew up the ground making it harder for the attackers to cross, including merely rearranging the barbed wire instead of cutting through it. The result was that being the defender was always advantageous, and being the attacker was always disadvantageous in trench warfare. That's why most of the battle lines on the Western Front remained static for about four years.

I would recommend this movie as worth seeing for world war buffs and Daniel Craig fans, although it likely won't be anyone's favorite movie.

World War I has been very neglected by the movie industry, so that fact in itself makes this film slightly "unusual". While it's impossible to say how "accurate" this depiction of life in the trenches really is, to my eye the sets, the uniforms, the equipment etc. looked pretty impressive. However, I did have a problem with the gratuitous use of the "f" word, which all the characters seemed to use more and more as the film went on. I have nothing at all against "bad language" in a movie if it's in the right context, but swearing just for the sake of it just gets boring after a while - and more to the point, did young British men nearly 90 years ago REALLY say "f**k" all the time, as young men these days seem to? I would guess not. As a youngster I knew a number of old soldiers (elderly neighbours, great uncles and the like) who had actually fought in the First World War, and I don't recall ever hearing one of them use even mild profanities. So to my ear, much of the banter between the young soldiers in the movie seemed somewhat anachronistic. I also had a problem with the scene when the troops finally went "over the top" towards the end of the movie. Instead of marching across a devastated, shell-cratered moonscape which was typical of World War I battlefields, we had them marching across a very lush, green English field bearing not a single scar of war!!! This, and the complete absence of enemy troops in the movie (apart from the solitary prisoner brought back from a night raid) betrayed the film's low budget. A moderately interesting film that has you sympathising with the characters by the end, but I won't be going out of my way to give it a second viewing and I'm glad that I saw it on TV, rather than spending hard-earned money on the DVD. 5 out of 10.

My father fought in WW1. Yes, you read that right, my father and not my grandfather. He was at Ypres, Passchendaele and the second battle of the Somme. His older brother died in front of him on the battlefield. He didn't speak much about it, I guess he didn't want to re-live it. Subsequently, WW1 looms large in my life and I am always drawn to movies like this. Make no mistake, this is no 1917...but then again, it never could have been. What it is, though, is an affecting portrayal of what it must have actually been like featuring an excellent cast and some fine character development. You care about the men, knowing as you do that it doesn't end well. The sense of impending doom is overwhelming.

As I've stated, I have watched plenty of movies that basically cover the same ground and this is definitely one of the better efforts. Special praise must go to Daniel Craig as the war-weary scouse sargeant, Julian Rhind-Tutt as the anxious toff officer and most surprisingly Paul Nicholls (yes, him from Eastenders) as the wet-behind-the-ears private who, as the movies true 'everyman' character, we're all rooting for to survive. It seems somehow inappropriate to call such a harrowing story enjoyable, but it is enjoyable all the same. Recommended to anybody with an interest in the subject matter.

I went considerably out of my way to be the only woman in the theater to see "The Trench" from Britain, a conventional continuation of the British obsession with World War I as being the most symbolic war. Not much new here that wasn't in "All Quiet on the Western Front" or "Paths of Glory" or "Gallipoli", but I suppose some lessons need illustrating for new generations.

Taking place claustrophobically in the trenches just prior to the bloody Battle of the Somme with the sounds of war all around--though it could also have been taking place in the canals of Mars against aliens-- the characters are typically class-based Brits (from ineffectual aristocratic officer to working class blokes whose conversations need subtitles for American viewers), but manage to stay above stereotypes through excellent acting (with actors familiar to us from PBS's "Mystery" and "Masterpiece Theater") and personalization.

I'm probably the only one other than Daniel Craig's family (and the webmasters at his fan site) who went to see the movie for him, but his career soldier sergeant in particular is a real human being.

Otherwise, as always with ensemble war movies, I have trouble telling the young guys in uniform apart to keep the characters straight.(originally written 12/2/2000)