There are movies about an event, and there are stories told with the event as a backdrop. For example, Tora Tora Tora was about the Pearl Harbor Attack, while the movie Pearl Harbor is about two men attracted to the same woman... while in the background some ships were sunk.

Dunkirk is a collection of formulatic substories loosly threaded together. Adding to this is that fact that the film is composed in a way that a normal viewer takes a long time to realize that the story is not being told chronologically.

To add insult to injury, the film misses the point that the main hero of this operation was the citizens of the UK, who on their own accord sailed across the channel to rescue soldiers. Furthermore, despite losing their heavy weaponry, rescuing an intact, trained fighting force had a major impact on the war... or at least on the nation's moral.

I felt very much let down by this movie.