The Trench (2002)

Stuck in their putrid, claustrophobic trench, 17-year-old Billy Macfarlane and his mates desperately try to distract themselves from what is rapidly approaching – by whatever means necessary. Only a short time ago, these brash young men had raced to sign up and fight the Kaiser. Now, with the countdown to war ticking away, the awful truth of what they are about to encounter begins to sink in. Surrounded by snipers and with the artillery barrage thundering constantly overhead, the war is closing in around them. When the order finally comes to fix bayonets and clamber over the top, these frightened soldiers are forced out of the trench and into a hellish maelstrom of smoke, blood and destiny. Who will survive? Who will wish they had not?

A terrible waste

Set in the run up to the disastrous first day of the 1916 Battle of the Somme, The Trench isn't entirely worthless, but it's not a movie, more a filmed play (despite being written as a movie), and a very poor one at that with that 1970s BBC For Schools television look. The decision to shoot on a soundstage is particularly disastrous, since it never looks like anything but a soundstage, and this despite having a good cinematographer (Tony Pierce-Roberts). The decision to never leave the trench until the final scene doesn't really work, partially because we have no indication of the world that awaits them, but largely because Boyd's finale is just too televisual to have any compensating shock value. The abrupt jump to exterior for the last couple of minutes (and very tame they are too) is very noticeable, the film stocks and looks just not matching at all. Borrowing the final image of Gallipoli as well doesn't help.

Characters constantly explain what they're doing to each other despite having been in the trench for several weeks or months; there's no immediacy, no sense of danger, no sense of having to live in a fetid, claustrophobic open grave. Indeed, it's one of the most comfortable British trenches I've seen, with an absolutely level floor for the most part place. The soft barrage - the quietest I've ever heard for shells landing 700 yards away - doesn't help. Boyd really doesn't have any idea of the possibilities that cinema has to offer, either camera or sound. It's real problem, though, is that ultimately it's a polite, clean and determinedly inoffensive film about a dirty, ugly war.

Pluses are some good performances, most notably Daniel Craig and Paul Nicholls, the latter improving after a bland start to establish a credible screen presence. There are a couple of good scenes, too, but it doesn't really have the ring of truth or authenticity - the mood seems more influenced by hindsight than the actual mood in the run-up to the first day. Not only do you never feel you're there alongside them, but there's no sense of people caught up in, and disposed by the mad rush of a cruel history beyond their control. There's no dread, no fear, just observation. The shortfall between the film Boyd thought he was making and the bland one he did is all too apparent all too often.
September 8, 2007

The Trench

If you like World War one, you will enjoy this title, but if you are into a real historic view of Trench warfare you will find faults. Acting is solid, but the sets are too clean,even for early in the war. This production seems more stage play, than movie. If you can rent it first, see it before you decide to buy it. January 3, 2007

Pretty Bad!!

The expectations for this film embraced the word, "epic," but all-in-all, this one missed the boat by orders of magnitude. As a film that was likely intended to show the "reality" of life during trench warfare in World War I, it is an utter failure. SO many missed opportunities here! This film came about as close to accurately portraying trench warfare as "Apocalypse Now" did in accurately describing the Vietnam War, which was positively ludicrous. In fact, this film is so bad that it makes the very limited combat scenes and trench warfare vignettes in "Sergeant York" look like an epic. June 24, 2006

Well-intentioned but inept

It's heart might be in the right place, but this tepid misfire looks like a bad TV schools production in every way. The 'exteriors' are obviously interior studio sets, and not very convincing ones. It's so badly lit that when the film finally goes outdoors to rip off the end of Gallipoli (which it does incredibly badly, like everything else) the change of film stock is so jarring it hurts.

The characters are childish stereotypes talking in unbelievable clichés and the film is frequently just plain wrong about details and attitudes of the average WW1 Tommy: politically correct, maybe, but historically it's a travesty (no Mr Boyd, officers DID go over the top: the highest percentage of casualties was officers, and even many generals died in battle).

But more than being badly directed, looking cheap, getting its facts wrong and going with every cliché Boyd can find, it's biggest sin is that it's just so bloody boring. Bad on every level.

WW1 was a terrible tragedy, and those who died in it deserve better than this terrible, terrible film. July 2, 2005

for what it is, it was pretty good

Reading the other reviews here, I had to post one myself to defend it. The movie has its problems, but some of the complaints are unjustified.

To say the ending was a rip-off of some other war movie is just silly -- how else could it have ended? This was the Somme. You don't make a movie about the first day of the Somme if you want anything other than a massacre.

To the person complaining about No Man's Land being a grassy meadow. There was a place called Serre where the attacking British DID cross a grassy meadow. The grass was so long, as the wounded men fell, some of the others thought there'd been an order to get down, and so they did too, only to find the others wounded or dead.

To the guy complaining about the lack of homoerotic content, all I can say is, oh well. Not everything's always about sex.

Movies about battles like this, you can look at from a big picture perspective or you can zoom in for a close look at a group of individuals. This movie goes for the close-up. It's not trying to be anything else. This is a movie about the strain of the long hours waiting for a major offensive to begin, for a bunch of young guys, most of whom were new to the war. It's dumb to criticize it for failing to be something else. I thought it did a pretty good job of portraying the situation. The boredom, the fear, how difficult it would be to sleep or eat or turn off your brain during those long hours. The ways the men might snipe at one another over little things due to frayed nerves. The relationship between the men, the sergeant and the lieutenant was subtle but I think well-done.

My complaints are that it goes about a half hour too long. The trench looked mighty tidy to me too. I had trouble believing that a shell big enough to blow 2 men to bits wouldn't have done more damage to the structure of the trench there.

Also most of these guys would have known each other from civilian life; the British army had a lot of "Pals Battalions" where guys from the same village or area joined up and served together. Most of these guys should have known one another.

I am pretty sure I saw a guy light a cigarette with a Bic-type lighter and I'm pretty sure they would not have had something like that.

I think for a look at "trench life" for a bunch of newbies about to go over the top for the first time, it was pretty good. February 10, 2005

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