The War Below

First world war drama ,in the fields of no mansland, soldiers life in the trenches of mud and decay, rats and the proud underground workers serving under the colonels wings in the ranks of king edward/george?(cant remember) the king of the british empire, where the coal miners excavate tunnels under the german lines to blast the into never land.

Its a dangerous job digging, also the danger of crossing the line of german mining moles does amplify the scares. So its about silence in everything you do, unless you might get killed by an earthskott.

Story and production is well taken care of, the detailed background war theater that usually is a lowdown on past productions,do seem very realistic here. To be squemish i think the spoken english is far to modern, some dialect coaching couldve made it more timely of the era.

Intens and feels like never ending, and shows some of the forgotten sons of the king and country, they didnt win the war, they just laid the foundation for it. A good film good style and at times quite breathless moment for a grumpy old man. Recommended.

The film is actually very good for its tiny budget - surprisingly good to be honest.

It's obviously no 1917, and I wasn't sure want to make of it at first, but you get into it and I'm glad I stuck with it, because by the end I was totally engrossed. A poignant ending and a fine tribute to the miners of WWI.

I would recommend it, and would equally watch it again.

I recently watched an absolute shambles of a WW1 film called "Forbidden Ground" from 2013. That film was made on a budget in the region of $40 million. The film spent more time up in the actors faces that you would wonder what exactly the money went towards. Then I seen this film, "The War Below", made on a very low budget of around 500,000 pounds. The set-design values, namely the trenches, looked a thousand times better, or rather, were utilised better in this film. Obviously, it is no "1917", but "The War Below" definitely stands tall and I would rank among the best WW1 productions. It would give its natural equivalent, "Beneath Hill 60", a good run at the races. Like that movie, the film follows the story of a group of civilian tunnellers arriving in the trenches of Europe during the Great War. They are tasked with digging beneath No Mans Land and planting enough explosives beneath the German trenches to destroy them and end the bloody stalemate once and for all.

Everyone deserves praise for this film but what truly stood out to me was the cinematography by Nick Cooke. There are some beautiful shot scenes of spring fields and soldiers walking through them and obviously he had a hand to play in bringing the trenches to life.

It simply has everything in the right place. It's a combination of a great story of real selfless sacrifice, a good script and excellent acting.

Could the end result be any better? Sure. If they had the budget for million-dollar special effects and A-list actors, the eye-candy value would be higher. But this is a war movie, about real people who gave their lives for others. It's not Candy Crush.

If I were one of the tunnellers I would be proud of this movie, it was focused, respectful and moving.