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 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.