The Trench (1999) User Reviews (53)

partly authentic-looking WWI account

[Miles-10 · 6/10 · 13 September 2016]

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.

Worth a look, but glad I didn't spend money on the DVD

[Big S-2 · 5/10 · 14 September 2002]

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.

Quality performances make a simple film powerfully effective

[adrianj · 7/10 · 25 September 1999]

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.

Captures A Sense Of Personal Impending Doom & Claustrophobia

[wc1n3xx · 10 November 2001]

Shot 99.9% INSIDE the trench to convey the sense of claustrophobia. It works. You can almost smell the trench. I personally think that the low budget style produced a happy bi-product rather than it being planned. Not a conventional war movie but a VERY British close up at the inter-personal relationships during WW1 before the Battle of The Somme. The youthful Paul Nicholls eminates a young 'duty to your country soldier' and in the alone-ness he fantasises over the memory of a young girl who merely served him with a stamp at his local post office. Loads of blood and guts and a particularly harrowing scene - almost subliminal - which works well as it ensures your brain remembers the real horrors of war at close quarters inside a trench. The usual chain of command reveals why delegation can sometimes disguise cowardice and fear. The film achieves its objective and portrays the awful waste of life.

Modern culture imposed on WWI weakens this war film

[SimonJack · 6/10 · 5 October 2015]

The focus of "The Trench" obviously is on the human aspects of the British men who have gone to war in World War I. It does a good job of portraying the British soldiers with their emotions, thoughts and trepidations about their circumstances in the trenches of northern France. But it also seems to distort some of the human trappings and demeanors of the time. When movies impose modern mores and culture on the past, they distort that time and its culture and history. Thus, people who don't study such things or have knowledge of the times wind up with an inaccurate notion of history or of the reality of that time.

Two things seem obvious as cultural distortions in this film. The first is the casual, almost disrespectful attitude and unruliness of the soldiers. This isn't something that happens just once or twice, but frequently. While all military throughout history likely has had some humor and playful banter among troops at times, it seems to be more of the rule among this platoon of Brits. The second is in the language. Again, all military throughout history likely has had some use of foul or rough language. But here, it seems that this 1916 platoon of British soldiers has adopted early 21st century British street talk (is it really that vulgar among society in England today?). And, I doubt that the British may always have had more vulgar mouths than we Yanks. But, by the standard of this film, the Brits make the service times of my family, from WW II through Vietnam, seem like baby talk.

There may be any number of other distortions as well. Anthony Strachan, who plays Horace Beckwith, is very good in his role. But I doubt that a man so much over weight would have been conscripted or allowed to join the British Army then, or any time. I knew some men a little over weight at my boot camp, but they were whipped into shape by the end, usually with much less weight to carry around. The men in this film seemed almost constantly to be smoking cigarettes. Cigarette smoking grew immensely during WW I, but it wasn't yet to the point shown in this film among British soldiers. In a long documentary film of WWI that came with the DVD of this movie, I didn't see a single scene of men smoking cigarettes on the French, British and German lines. But, several scenes showed Allied soldiers in the trenches smoking pipes.

The last couple of gross inaccuracies are in the setting. The movie folks did a credible job building the set of trenches – except for one thing. Where is the water and mud? The Allied trenches of WWI were notorious for their foul water and mud, yet we don't see any of that here. And, the scene of the battlefield that the Brits have to charge onto is a lush green meadow. That was almost laughable. Both sides had been bombarding that area for days on end. The land was a desolate wasteland.

The distorted portrayal of the conditions and culture are significant enough to cost this film two stars, so I can rate it no higher than six stars. I base that mostly on the fine performances of the cast – all the actors. The setting of this film was in the days leading up to the first day of the British attack in the Battle of the Somme (July 1 to November 18, 1916). That first day – when this film ends – cost more than 60,000 British soldiers wounded or killed. It's considered the bloodiest slaughter in the history of the British Army.

I mentioned a bonus documentary that came on the DVD with this film. "World War I: On the Western Front" is an excellent lengthy documentary of WWI. It is a CBS News documentary that shows only actual battle film of the French, British and German forces. It is narrated by actor Robert Ryan. That documentary is centered around the Battle of Verdun which cost more than 500,000 lives. It shows scenes all along the Western Front. Men are standing in deep water in the trenches. Men and machines try to move over drenched and muddy roads and fields. And, battlefields between the lines are a no-man's wasteland. Not a blade of grass, flower or tree can be seen. None of that was staged by Hollywood, but Hollywood (in the U.S. and abroad) would do well to study such actual war films to better and more accurately portray scenes in war movies.

Yet Another Portrait of World War I Was Hell

[noralee · 6/10 · 8 October 2005]

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)

The rats are too small and uniforms too clean, but it vividly depicts the mentality of doomed men.

[elcoat · 7/10 · 9 March 2020]

Daniel Craig is very good ... believable ... in this. Very much the sergeant. He is also excellent in Archangel (Russia). The jury is still out about his James Bond, which is entirely different.

There are some good, realistic, and disturbing undercurrents in this psychological portrayal:

• Craig's sergeant is a career soldier and family man - 2 daughters and 1 son - who is realizing his life is about to be wasted by his Army/corporation.
• The corporal being a scared but nonetheless vicious bully pushed to his psychological limit by his fear of his impending death.
• The nude girl in the corporal's nude photos apparently being the postal worker Pvt McFarlane has a crush on ... or fantasy about ... or maybe just similar face ... implying the lower class's girls back home are being corrupted into prostitution while their boyfriends are being wasted.

(Who *is* that beautiful girl?! Is she an actress? Why isn't she in the credits?)

• The lieutenant's alcoholism.
• The randomness of death in the trenches and the certainty of death of going up over the top out of them.
• The irony of the one brother being wounded ... and surviving.
• The squadie asking the visiting colonel if he is going to accompany them in the attack, the colonel uneasily (albeit not guiltily) admitting (after trying to pump them up telling them how easy it will be) he won't be, and then the squadie being taken around the corner and slapped upside the head by the career sergeant for (having the guts ) to speak up.
• The lying chain of command telling them first that they will be in the 3rd wave with a better chance of survival and then unforeseen difficulties putting them in the first wave. Or was it dooming retaliation for the squadie's question?

There are indeed jarringly inconsistent unrealities: only 1 little rat, clean uniforms, no gloomy constant Northern European rain/drizzle as someone else has pointed out, No Man's Land looking verdant when it should look like The Craters of the Moon especially after the bombardment, ... but the film's military social and mental message outweighs them

Lots of people are eager for a "major war" these days - Tyler Cowen in the 13 June 2014 New York Times, for example - and their friends and families should see this.

Fair enough little WW I production.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 6/10 · 7 February 2007]

When looking at this movie, it becomes obvious that it didn't had a very high budget. Not only its settings are kept cheap and simple but also the overall style and atmosphere of the movie. Nevertheless the movie is good enough and also serves its purpose well enough.

In my opinion it's always interesting to watch a movie about WW I, since it's a subject that doesn't get much lighted in movies too often. It usually are small European productions like this one that handle the subject. It in my opinion makes WW I an underused part of history in the movie making business.

It's a slowly told movie, set purely in British trench during WW I, in France, in the days before the battle of the Somme. One of the bloodiest battles in human history, with over one million casualties. Because the story is slow and set mainly at one location, it allows the movie to deepen its characters out and allow the actors to do their job and carry the movie.

It's however definitely true that the movie is filled with far too many characters to put in a 100 minutes short movie. I'm sure the story and all of its characters would had worked out fine in a mini-series but it's a bit too much to put in a movie. It has as a result that none of the characters ever get really interesting- or fleshed out good enough to care about them. It makes the movie emotionally flat and even also quite boring at certain points, also since not really that much interesting is happening in the movie.

The dialog and situations are also far too cliché to consider them good or original. The movie offers very little surprises and it makes "The Trench" perhaps a bit of an obsolete movie to watch.

The actors still do their very best to carry the movie to an higher level. Daniel Craig is really superb in his role and he provides the movie still with some much needed emotions. It was also fun to see Cillian Murphy in a small and early role. Obviously too small to really make a lasting impression though.

And than about the end battle. Well, when looking at this movie you should know better than to expect a big spectacular ending. If you already watched the first 90 minutes of this movie, you just know you're plain wrong to expect suddenly something big and spectacular. So in my opinion the ending just felt right and it was suiting with the rest of the movie. But obviously, it doesn't do much justice to the real battle of the Somme that was one of the biggest of WW I and also one of the bloodiest in human history. This obviously really doesn't show on screen however.

Good enough to kill some time with. Just don't expect anything spectacular or emotionally powerful.

6/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Totally unbelievable.

[simononsolway · 1/10 · 25 January 2019]

As a bit of a WW1 enthusiast, I was expecting a depiction of the harsh realities of trench warfare. Sadly I was left disappointed. Almost all the accounts I have ever read from soldiers who fought on the Somme talk about the filth, the stench and the dreadful weather conditions (the Allied advance itself was delayed for three days due to heavy rain). However this film was clearly shot in a nice warm dry studio with the "trench" itself being made of plastic. There was no hint of any weather at all throughout the entire film and no attempt the make it look as though the events depicted had taken place outdoors. Needless to say there was no mud or reference to it, and the plastic "trench" showed no signs of crumbling or shaking under the relentless shellfire of the German shelling. To add to the implausibility of the film, non of the soldiers had anything about them to suggest that they had been living under these conditions for any length of time. We know that it was not uncommon for soldiers to wear the same clothes and boots for weeks at a time without washing or changing, but all the soldiers we saw looked as though they had just walked out of the local hair dressers - perfectly clean styled hair to a man.

We also know that lice were a constant problem in the trenches, and infested the uniforms of the soldiers and made daily life a misery. However the film is far too clean and well groomed to feature such things.

I know that these are all relatively small historical errors and it is necessary to allow for a little 'artistic license' and I am not the sort of person who would claim a film was ruined because someone had the wrong regimental badge on their cap or something! But it seems that the purpose of the film was to examine the realities of trench warfare and the impact that living in these conditions had on the boys who were sent to fight there. A bit of effort on the part of the writer/director to actually understand his subject would have gone a long way. Even just filming it outside would have made a huge difference to the whole feel of the piece. I really did not enjoy it and actually consider that it played down the enormous sacrifice made by the men whose stories it tried to tell.

Watchable

[ohmissusgee · 6/10 · 24 December 2020]

One of those movies where you spend more time spotting actors than you do on the plot (omg Danny Dyer looks so young, and wasn't HE in Eastenders too, and that's the bloke off Peaky Blinders). Some tense, gory or miserable scenes.

Poor and clichéd fare

[pafcollins · 2/10 · 15 February 2008]

I tend to agree with most comments about this film, which I only caught up with recently. The acting is decent, but the script, the set, the anachronistic swearing and the general lack of any feel for the time makes it difficult to watch without sighing heavily. I mainly decided to comment because I scrolled down to find a comment from someone in New York who says this was 'a conventional continuation of the British obsession with World War I as being the most symbolic war'. I wouldn't disagree with that, but she then mentions three films to back up this view: All Quiet on the Western Front (an American film based on a novel by a German, about the German army), Paths of Glory (a film made by an American about the French army) and Gallipoli (made by an Australian about the Australian experience in the Dardanelles). I do think we see this war as symbolic here in the UK, but I don't think we're the only ones.

Genuinely affecting...

[gillespiesan · 8/10 · 5 January 2021]

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.

The Trench shows much of the conditions and events that soldiers endured in the Somme theater of war

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 19 November 2022]

The films starts with a prologue: "In the high summer of 1916, in northern France, the British Army prepared for the biggest offensive of the First World War. As hundreds of thousands of troops massed in the rear, waiting for the order to attack, a reduced force was put in place to hold the front line trenches." The movie deals with a group of English soldiers in First Great War ( 1914 to 1918 ) . A story about a team of soldiers' last days before the battle of the Somme in 1916. It is a place 8ft wide, 600 miles long, man-made and God-forsaken. And an epilogue: "On the 1st July 1916--the first day of the Battle of the Somme--60,000 soldiers were killed or wounded, most of those in the first two hours of the attack. It remains the bloodiest day of slaughter in the history of the British Army."

Much acclaimed story about the doomed WWI soldiers in the Somme campaign , it's turns out to be a touching and powerful film , nonetheless includes a predictable but riveting final in ¨Peter Weir's Gallipoli¨style. Dealing with brooding and thought-provoking issues about WWI from sight point of the unsettling soldiers who have to face off their possible death on the trenches or in the battlefront . The flick has an eerie atmosphere , it is in gaudy color , enhanced by the mud of trenches and with excellent settings .Set design is accurately adequate , the movie is enough atmospheric , the dark sludge , the dirtiness and filthiness with the muddy trenches are very well designed . In fact , in preparation for the movie , producers sent the main and support cast to a replica trench for a night, to experience the conditions the British Army suffered . This exciting picture contains friendship , a wonderful relationship among soldiers and a gripping commentary on the wastes of WWI . The flick has its touching moments found primarily in the superb main and supporting performances from then-unknown Daniel Craig ,Paul Nicholls , Julian Rhind-Tutt , Danny Dyer , Tam Williams , Antony Strachan , Cillian Murphy , James D'Arcy , Ben Whishaw and and Tom Hardy can briefly be seen carrying a rifle in two back-to-back frames . The film also helped to launch the international career of some actors to be followed a prestigious international career as Daniel Craig , Cillian Murphy , James D'Arcy and Ben Whishaw.

The motion picture was competently written and directed by British filmmaker William Boyd . He is a writer and producer, known for The Trench (1999), Chaplin (1992) and The Galapagos Affair. He's usually a writer who was awarded the C. B. E.(Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2005 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to literature. He has written numerous interesting stories superbly filmed by other directors ,and in his prestigious career deserves special attention his scripts as Cinema as TV , including the following ones : Sword of Honour with Daniel Craig , Tune in Tomorrow..., Chaplin , Man to man, A Good Man in Africa, Mister Johnson, Restless , among others. Rating : 6/10. Well worth watching for the attractive actors playing this WWI sad story .

Well-intentioned but inept

[burrobaggy · 2/10 · 15 June 2004]

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.

trench life made to look cosy

[gumbo31 · 31 August 2006]

Strangely this film has grown on me and I'm not sure why but still have a hate for it. The acting is fairly sound and it has some good moments but there isn't much feel for realism. For a start the trenches would have been infested with rats and lice and from what I've read about The Somme it seemed a lot more draumatic than what was portrayed in this film. It just looked too clean. The main hardship they had experienced was boredom, not relentless rain and the constant madness of bombardments. Also what was the point of capturing a German and then not interrogate him, but give him a fag and then let him go? Another wrong point is that the battalions would have been from the same region. Yeh, I'm being picky but why the scots were with southerners and northerners I don't know. The end of the film is the worst. Surely if there had been nights of endless shelling you'd expect to see some shell holes when going over the top? Could of had a nice picnic on that land. Shame, if the director had read more relevant books it could have been really good.

Before they were famous

[bowmanblue · 6/10 · 19 December 2014]

'The Trench' is basically a World War 1 drama with a host of 'soon-to-be-famous' faces, including Daniel Craig, Cillian Murphy and Danny Dyer (the latter of which produces arguably one of the best performances of his career). It does its best to portray life on of the most depressing and violent conflicts in the history of man. But does it do it well? It's hit and miss. First of all, with a cast list as above, you can't really fault the acting. Everyone does their best with what's provided. However, where it falls down is the story. There isn't really one. But then that's hardly the film's fault, more a by-product of the subject matter. You can't really tell the story of the entire First World War in an hour and a half, so the film concentrates on just the build up to the first few days of the battle of the Somme.

The characters just wander around, waiting for the final call from the military's top brass to send them over the top in an attempt to gain ground from the Germans. You get to know some of the soldiers and naturally care for their fates, it's just the whole film is really just about showing the conditions they had to live in, rather than telling a story which wasn't really there to begin with.

I grew up on Blackadder (Goes Forth) and felt, despite its 'comedy' tag, it was somehow more touching than The Trench managed. Plus both the TV show 'Blackadder' and the film The Trench seemed to have similar budgets when it came to sets. I know it's a minor gripe, but everything in The Trench was 'filmed from above' so to speak. That way you never saw the sky (with the exception of about two shots). I know this might have been designed to heighten the 'claustrophobic' nature the soldiers had to live in, but it just felt cheap to me – like everything was simply filmed on a 'trench set.' Plus the soldiers' uniforms looked way too clean to be rolling around in mud for months on end! If you're looking for a film that shows the conditions of what the soldiers had to live in then this is it. If you want something with drama and poignancy then try Blackadder Goes Forth (plus it has humour, too). 'The Trench' isn't a bad film. It's just that it's hard to make a story out of just showing soldiers in the trenches.

An Attempt at an Accurate WWI Movie

[bradleychandler27 · 6/10 · 19 November 2021]

Any movie trying to portray events of WWI must have as its crux the story of the soldiers involved. That is the one saving grace and highlight of this film. The stories of the individuals involved is the focal point. That said, there were a lot of problems with the story and the film has little to no value outside of it. The writing was headed in the right direction, but was only ever part of the way there, is the best I can put it.

Gritty, stark depiction of the reality of war

[grantss · 7/10 · 20 December 2022]

June 1916. The British Army is planning a big offensive in the Somme region in France. We follow a platoon of British soldiers as they sit in a forward trench, anxiously awaiting the order to go over the top. The offensive has been postponed a few times, leaving them even more frayed and restless.

Good depiction of war at a small unit and individual level. There's not much action, which makes it even more chilling as this is how it is: several days, weeks even without anything happening and then the horror of combat. For the most part the soldiers are just sitting around, waiting for the battle to begin.

There are a few harsh reminders that death is ever present, even when seemingly safe in a trench in your own lines, so it's not all idleness. This downtime is also used to help the character development, illustrate what was going through soldiers' minds in the build-up to a big battle and generally ratchet up the tension.

This extended downtime does also cause the film to drag somewhat. Appreciated what writer-director William Boyd was trying to do but some parts are a bit tedious. There's also an inevitability and predictability to proceedings.

Can't fault the final scene though: brings everything home in emphatic fashion.

Enjoyable but unexciting

[gwat-91721 · 6/10 · 17 September 2019]

I quite enjoyed this film. I saw the "trench" as a symbolic representation of the British Somme front as a whole.

I give it 6/10 - I mark it down a bit because it was rather slow and long-winded, and although the ending worked for me, it was a cliche. In fact the script as a whole was a bit lazy, for instance the incidents of the squaddy calling out to the commander "are you going too sir?", and the general handing out footballs to make a sporting challenge out of the attack, are both incidents that pop up in many accounts of the battle.

I do, however, take issue with some of the criticisms of anachronism put forward in other reviews. For instance: that there was too much swearing. Googling will reveal a number of contemporary accounts that expressed surprise that foul language was such a feature of the lower ranks, often prompting the authors to make up possible reasons for this.

In addition the criticism that the men were too diverse, and citing the existence of "pals" battalions, is wide of the mark. The recruitment of the British army in WWI went through several phases. Initially the army was a professional one of regulars, but it was very small. This was rectified by a major campaign to recruit volunteers ("Your Country Needs You") of which a feature was the recruitment of whole battalions from the same area or background - "pals" battalions. However the stream of volunteers dried up and conscription was introduced. This happened before the battle of the Somme, but the first conscripts only came into the line after that battle had started.

From their insignia (RF and a grenade badge), the blokes in the "trench" were from the Royal Fusiliers. This was a London, regiment so was likely to be pretty diverse anyway. But in addition (1) only the 1st and 2nd Btns of the R. Fusiliers fought at the Somme. These are the original regular battalions ("pals" btns would have later, higher, numbers) (2) it is made clear early on that the men in the trench are reinforcements - freshly trained and with no combat exposure (this why they are manning the forward trench while the more experienced troops rest before the attack, and why they originally expect not to be in the first wave). So they are a draft from the last of the volunteers - and as such it is reasonable that they would be a motley bunch collected to fill in the gaps before the new conscripted troops were ready.

I purchased a copy of the long slow boring film

[TexasRedge · 3/10 · 23 March 2008]

I purchased a copy of this long, boring slow film after talking to a member of the Memphis Grizzlies NBA basketball team (who will remain nameless) on an airplane trip from Denver back to Memphis. He said it was a great film and one that he enjoyed. I thought to myself that someone of his stature has all the time in the world to watch all kinds of movies (during the basketball off season)... I was surprised to hear him speak to me about his passion for war movies and how much he recommended this one.....

he must've watched a different movie than I did. this movie started out like it was going to be very good, but then no real story developed. It did have some good aspects such as the dirty and gritty movie set, the realistic lingo and the grueling sounds, and it is very historically accurate... they did that stuff well in this movie. ...the problem with this movie is that it just doesn't develop a story, and it turns into 2 hours of nothing. ...I kept waiting for something to happen ..and it never did.

I had to purchase a copy of it because none of the video rental places had a copy to rent... don't buy this movie

Worth having a look at...

[buiger · 6/10 · 9 April 2014]

Most importantly, I thought it depicted the spirit of the times rather well. Otherwise, a good picture but by all means not a masterpiece. It lacked above all in deeper characterization, we don't really care very much about the various soldiers, mainly because we don't get to know them well enough, thus we are not disturbed when they are hit or they die.

Some criticized the cinematography which I thought was adequate to depict the squalor of the trenches, but I must admit the sound could have been improved upon greatly. I did not think Daniel Craig gave a great performance like some say. I found it to be professional, but nothing more than that. All in all an average movie, or slightly above that.

I Did Have Reservations At The Start ....

[Theo Robertson · 4/10 · 5 November 2003]

.... because the opening title sequence is very bland . Compare it to the shocking title sequence of the 1960s BBC documentary THE GREAT WAR . As the film goes on we`re introduced to the characters and I couldn`t help noticing that one is Southern English , a couple are Northern English , a couple are Jocks , a couple are Irish while the sarge is a scouser . I`m sorry but I was convinced that British army infantry regiments of the period were composed of " Pals battalions " , that is battalions composed entirely of men from the same home town . Take for instance the 16th battalion of The Royal Scots which was formed in one week and was called " The Hearts battalion " because it was composed mainly of supporters of Hearts football club . The 16th Royal Scots even had 16 Hearts players in its ranks so I don`t believe for a moment that any British army infantry platoon was as regionally mixed as the one here

The more THE TRENCH goes on the more I found myself questioning the accuracy of the movie especially its mood and its sense of time and place . A British made trench in France in 1916 . Since when did the Brits build trenches like the one seen here ? It even has a concrete floor that the Germans would have been proud of which seems to go against I`ve seen in photographic evidence . The film also has an anachronistic cynical air , what on the eve of the Somme ? The British troops had witnessed day upon day of hellish bombardment of the German positions and a lot of British soldiers had begun to feel rather sorry for Jerry , and no one but no one in the British lines had any reason to doubt anything less than a swift , spectacular British victory . Of course one day and 20,000 dead British soldiers later changed these thoughts , in fact some historians describe the date 1st of July 1916 " The day British idealism died " . One final point - As at least one other commentator mentioned THE TRENCH contains a large amount of swear words . It has been documented that one criticism by the real life survivors of BAND OF BROTHERS was that the HBO/BBC drama contained too much swearing and that people in the 1940s used far less profane words than people use nowadays . I`m inclined to believe them and I`m also inclined to believe people in 1916 probably swore less than people in the 1940s so I doubt if the men in the trenches used the " F " word in every sentence

Unfortunately who German bullets didn`t claim on that grim day have been killed by the passing of time so the chances of someone who was there writing into this site and telling us their opinion of THE TRENCH are very remote . A pity because I`d be very interested what they thought of it . As for myself I found the ending moving ( How could it not be ? ) but the rest is rather poor history and a rather poor film that seems to have homo erotic undertones

Extremely realistic and affecting

[nick-368 · 8/10 · 5 October 2020]

There seems to be many doubts expressed here about the verisimilitude of this film. To me, it is a powerful evocation of what it must have been like - to have genuinely been like - waiting in that trench for the awful battle ahead to come - a battle in which 60,000 UK troops were killed or injured - the biggest day of casualties ever.

I thought it would be helpful to post come of the writer's own thoughts as a useful corrective to some of the comments.

"I wanted to make a film about the First World War, which obsesses me, and I wanted to make it super-accurate. We took enormous pains to get everything right, from the badges on the caps to the state of the trenches in July 1916. Everything was scrupulously accurate. And one of the things I wanted to do was have no stars. And I achieved that. The only thing that's happened is they've since become enormous stars. But actually at the time, when I cast Daniel Craig, he wasn't well known at all, Ben Whishaw - it was his very first film, he was doing his A levels - Cillian Murphy, I think had made one little film in Ireland, Danny Dyer had yet to take over the pub in Eastenders, Julian Rhind-Tutt, James D'Arcy all these guys have gone on to have fantastic careers, and they owe it all to me, or course! But they were unknowns at the time. The most famous actor in it was Paul Nicholls, who had just come out of Eastenders.. It cost a million pounds, it was an arthouse war movie, it was fascinating to do.. As a portrait of the reality of trench life in World War One - which was in a way my main ambition - I don't think it can be faulted."

(Interviewed in 2018.)

"Soldiers swear, vilely, all the time - swear like troopers, in fact. Anyone who wants to know how soldiers swore in 1916 should read 'Her Privates We' (published in 1930), a magnificent novel by Frederic Manning, a writer who served at the Somme as a private soldier. Manning's fellow soldiers swear vigorously and colourfully.

"The war had been going on for two years and everyone -from the generals to the private officers - thought the battle would be a walkover. They thought the week-long barrage before it started would kill every German soldier opposite. They didn't know the German soldiers could descend to deep concrete dugouts and sit the barrage out. If you had said to a British Tommy, on the eve of the battle, that the Germans were just sitting there, waiting, he'd have thought you were joking.

The trenches at the Somme were solidly constructed, deep, well revetted and duckboarded. The Somme valley had been a quiet sector until the decision to have a battle there in 1916. People tend to forget that it took place in the middle of summer. Wildlife abounded, No Man's Land was unmown, uncropped pasture. Summer was everywhere except in the earthy confines of the trench, its only evidence in the strip of blue sky above your head."

(Excerpts from 'Bamboo', published 2005.)

Slow paced but still somewhat intense...

[paul_haakonsen · 6/10 · 16 July 2022]

I have seen the 1999 war drama "The Trench" once before, though I had utterly forgotten about the storyline. So as the opportunity presented itself to watch it again in 2022, of course I opted to sit down and watch it for the second time.

If you are sitting down to watch "The Trench" with the intention of being entertained by a non-stop war action movie with lots of firefights and such, then you are in for a rude awakening. Writer and and director William Boyd delivered a movie that was about the British troops that were waiting around for their orders to press on the German trenches. So there wasn't a whole lot of excitement happening throughout the course of the movie. And that could make it somewhat difficult to sit through 98 minutes of it.

I found the movie to be adequate, in the sense that I do feel that writer and director William Boyd captured the essence and spirit of trench warfare, especially in the way that the British were just waiting around for the orders to crawl up and march straight out into enemy fire. In that way, there is a gloomy and somewhat depressing sensation to the movie, and the actors in the movie portray that quite well.

They had a good cast ensemble put together for the movie, with the likes of Julian Rhind-Tutt, Danny Dyer, Cillian Murphy, Paul Nicholls and Daniel Craig.

"The Trench" is a somewhat slow paced narrative, so this is hardly a movie that I will be returning to watch for another time. But I will say that it is definitely a movie that is worth watching, especially if you have an interest in the 1st World War.

My rating of "The Trench" lands on a six out of ten stars.

Simply put, its a bore

[siempre348 · 3/10 · 7 December 2005]

I really don't need a war movie to be full of explosions to like it, but there was nothing about this movie worth liking. I really couldn't find a story to follow. The characters weren't developed enough for me to feel sympathetic for when they get picked off at the end. The production value of this film was like watching a play on PBS. If the producers and director wanted to give us a feel of what hell they went through in the trench having every other scene with the actors eating isn't going to help. I mean how about making it a true hell hole? I know this is supposed to take place in Summer, but mud, rain, and seeing the actor's breath to show cold, would have really helped. The No Man's Land was so Pristine that I thought the Tele-Tubbies were going to come rolling around. They could have thrown in barbed-wire, mortar shell holes, and the like.

Don't even bother borrowing them from the library. This thing is really disappointing.