denis888
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film 4 stars out of 5, calling it "expertly cast and really well acted: forthright, powerful, heartfelt."
I cannot agree more with that. Journey's End is a powerful depiction of what all bleakness, rudeness, booze, pain, suffering, trauma, shock, death, blood, vomit, sweat and mud are all about - they are all elements of brutal, merciless, sad, sick, dirty, even filthy, muddy, very crual and very shocking war.
WWI is never forgotten due to such awesome yet deeply tragic movies, so this one does its job well. A stellar cast of Asa Butterfield - Second Lieutenant Raleigh, Sam Claflin - Captain Stanhope, Paul Bettany - Lieutenant Osborne, Tom Sturridge - Second Lieutenant Hibbert, Toby Jones - Private Mason, Stephen Graham - Second Lieutenant Trotter, Robert Glenister - The Colonel - among others - is a huge asset here, as all these very British actors show how unberable and awful war was.
This deep, thick, fat, gurgling mud is omnipresent here, and this is the very symbol of that war - trenches, death, poor food, poor health, shock, traumas, alcoholism, endless waiting, and then - sudden, bleeding, vomiting war.
The movie is a must, but be warned - this is a very depressing one
Tony
Just got bored with how hard war was for upper and middle class officers. I'm no socialist, but I'm sick and tired of the toll it took on poets and authors. Any film based on their memoires or scribblings can never ever truly capture the horror of WW 1. Many of the lower ranked officers and NCO's deserve acclaim, their losses were proportionally as high or higher than the rank and file. The higher ranks never came to terms with their favoured cavalry was now obsolete, that men can't break through trenches that have well sighted machine guns. They played the final card - attrition, every man was expendable. Awful tactics, but worked eventually.
thedarkknight-99999
There are a lot of movies that tackled this theme maybe million times before. And the characters are by no means fresh or new. But it's the very limited time we get through that allowed the characters to flesh out. I cared about every single character in this movie. Of course, the acting has a major role in making the characters very easy to sympathize with. All the actor did a great job and all of them have their powerful moments. Asa Butterfield proved that he is a very good actor and that it's only his role choices that make him very underrated. But it's Sam Claflin who really shines in the role of Captain Stanhope. I liked his performance in My Cousin Rachel, but I think he gave his best performance ever in Journey's End. Using wobbly hand-held cameras was a great decision Saul Dibb made, it makes me feel that the movie shot in a second-person perspective and that makes me relate to the characters even more as I have always felt that I was standing with them in the battle area or as they were just talking. The production design is top notch.Besides the familiarity of the story and the stereotypical characters, which aren't big deal, I think the ending is a bit rushed, it is so effective and moving though.(8/10)
adonis98-743-186503
Set in a dugout in Aisne in 1918, it is the story of a group of British officers, led by the mentally disintegrating young officer Stanhope, as they await their fate. Despite the terrific and well talented Cast 'Journey's End' is a generic war film that lacks the soul of World War but also a good script as it is. The perfomances weren't that amazing either and most of the time people we arguing with each other than fighting with the enemy. Overall a boring mess of a movie and one that i do not recommend. (4/10)
