The cast is peppered with excellent actors to little effect.

Perhaps surprisingly, this older Dunkirk is less sentimental and more cynical than the Christopher Nolan blockbuster.

Seconds before the next raid by German divebombers, Britons on a French beach are shown praying for divine deliverance in a scene from this honest and stirring British film.

While handling a legendary-by now almost a sacred-subject, and with an admiring sense of its heroism, it is not afraid to show those who were involved in it as men first and heroes second.