Starring: George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, Claire Duburcq, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch

Director: Sam Mendes

IN “1917,” writer-director Sam Mendes seeks to blast World War I into modern-day theaters by applying a “Saving Private Ryan” treatment to the most tragic of conflicts. He uses the front as a set for a nail-biting drama – a big-screen, single-shot action thriller. Mendes, working with young screenwriter Kyrsty Wilson-Cairns, should be lauded for his boldness: The film falls short neither in its audacity nor in its honor of the 40 million who lost their lives in the futile fight.

“1917” is dedicated to the director’s great-grandfather and his stories of the “war to end all wars,” which he survived. And there’s an appealing, child’s-ear naivety to the plot about an insane dash across enemy lines as the clock ticks toward certain massacre. The challenges and intense structuring required to facilitate a one-shot narrative can weigh heavy at times, though, threatening to overshadow the emotion with all the flashy technical facility. Yet audiences will find their way in and admire what they see. Awards talk is likely.

Although it’s not composed of one single shot in reality, “1917” certainly comprises several seven-, eight-, or even nine-minute seamless takes. The editing is so fluid it’s hard to find that seam, at least until the point where the narrative finally grabs hold and the audience is no longer looking for one. It is all so closely choreographed – the dialogue alone is timed to split-second perfection with the movement – that there’s a sense initially of letting the emotion hang while the audience sits back and admires. The two main stars don’t bed in so easily at first either – perhaps because the camera is moving backwards as it tracks them down the trenches, giving the disorienting sense of a train in reverse.

They are lance-corporals Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), given a seemingly suicidal mission by a General Erinore (Colin Firth, in the first of many brief but impactful roles by recognized actors including Andrew Scott, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch and Richard Madden). They must go over the trenches and into enemy territory – across a no man’s land recently and suspiciously vacated by the German forces – to hand-deliver a command which will stop a 1,600-strong regiment charging into certain death.

“1917” really belongs to the young George MacKay, recently seen in “The True History of The Kelly Gang.” There he played a feral outback rebel. Here he looks eerily like a true Tommy, his face a tight facsimile of those we saw in “They Shall Not Grow Old.” The film asks a lot of him, giving him no backstory and minimal dialogue after a certain point in which to articulate his increasing desperation and peril. It’s a tribute to the actor that he lands the emotion every time without fail.

There’s a daring in the film which is completely unexpected: Amid wafts of “The English Patient” and “Saving Private Ryan” comes the suspicion that Mendes and Wilson-Cairns may have sprinkled their story with elements of Indiana Jones and possibly some Bourne as well. Will they get away with it? The answer is yes, because the initial surprise delivered by such seeming irreverence helps open the viewer up to the possibilities of thinking about that damned generation in a more actively heroic way. Mendes is intent on bringing a sense of breathless derring-do to a war only known for its doomed futility. And he loads onto it a one-take challenge, a rolling-back and slowly swerving camera, using the sleight of hand which distinguishes the best action cinema of this kind.

As his director of photography again, Roger Deakins makes appropriate and equally unexpected choices: Initially, at least, “1917” is shot in full daylight. Normally only viewed through filters and smoke, the trenches and swampy, sodden craters of the front are bright, open to scrutiny. Deakins matches his director’s need to re-stage World War I cinematically by bringing it out of the shadows. (SD-Agencies)