While 1917 may have its attributes, it has a serious problem. Although based on a true story, it deviates so much from the story that the film is more fiction than fact. As a combat veteran of two wars and a military historian, I find the deviations ridiculous and misleading. If viewers believe that the film is realistic reenactment of a battle during WWI, they are badly mistaken.

As the reviews stated, the story was about two soldiers who were ordered to send a message to a regimental commander whose Brigade was deep behind enemy lines and was about to lead his troops into an ambush that would have caused the loss of 1,600 men. The messengers were to tell the commander to call off the attack. One of the two messengers was the brother of an officer belonging to the endangered regiment.

In fact, there was only one messenger and he was not a brother of any of the attackers. Furthermore, the actual orders given to his company commander were,"Should the enemy counter-attack, go forward to meet him with fixed bayonets." Nothing about calling off an attack. The messenger's task was to locate three other companies and pass on the order. That necessitated him traveling through no-mans land which at most was a mile deep.

As the film tells it, the Germans withdrew to set up a trap. In fact they withdrew to eliminate a large bulge in their lines. From Feb. 23 to April 5 of that year, the Germans were moving their troops to the Hindenburg Line. The Germans withdrew along a 27 mile front and caught the British completely by surprise. As a result, the British were very cautious in moving forward which negates the film storyline that the Brigade was isolated. In fact, the entire British line moved forward, not just one Brigade. The story of 1917 takes place on April 6 (which incidentally us the day the Americans entered the war.)

The first noticeable flaw in the film is that the messengers are told to proceed southeast to find the Brigade. That would have sent them behind their own lines. Because the messengers had to travel westerly through their own trenches to reach the point that they jumped off into no-mans land, they had to be at a point at the easterly end of the bulge in the German lines. So they had to travel in a northerly direction. Also, they figured it would take them at least a day to get to the Brigade so the Brigade had to be located a considerable distance from the front lines. The day was cloudy and there was no sun or landmarks to guide the messengers and that was compounded when nightfall fell. However, in the true story, the messenger was in fact, much closer to the missing companies.

Otherwise, the film realistically depicts the WWI battlefield conditions and it does the best job of depicting a man dying from a wound that I have seen in any film. But what keeps this film from being a best film is its failure to realistically depict the manuevers involved. It could have been told better.