The kind of film that is hard to find today. Better than 1917. Story, direction, acting, editing/pacing, and set design all first rate. Photography is sublime, as is the music. Nearly flawless all around. No modern messaging here. Rather, 'The War Below' is an intimate "true story" film played out in believable understated fashion, acknowledging the sacrifices made by four everyday men who did something extraordinary (what most thought could not be done) to help end the "Great War". A fabulous film and highly recommended.

I recently watched an absolute shambles of a WW1 film called "Forbidden Ground" from 2013. That film was made on a budget in the region of $40 million. The film spent more time up in the actors faces that you would wonder what exactly the money went towards. Then I seen this film, "The War Below", made on a very low budget of around 500,000 pounds. The set-design values, namely the trenches, looked a thousand times better, or rather, were utilised better in this film. Obviously, it is no "1917", but "The War Below" definitely stands tall and I would rank among the best WW1 productions. It would give its natural equivalent, "Beneath Hill 60", a good run at the races. Like that movie, the film follows the story of a group of civilian tunnellers arriving in the trenches of Europe during the Great War. They are tasked with digging beneath No Mans Land and planting enough explosives beneath the German trenches to destroy them and end the bloody stalemate once and for all.

Everyone deserves praise for this film but what truly stood out to me was the cinematography by Nick Cooke. There are some beautiful shot scenes of spring fields and soldiers walking through them and obviously he had a hand to play in bringing the trenches to life.

Movies about the First World War are an acquired taste. Allied soldiers sported helmets shaped like bedpans during World War I, and they simply don't look as cool as their American counterparts in World War 2. Primarily, combat occurred largely in muddy, rat-infested trenches, while chattering machine guns mowed down men by the hundreds after they emerged from cover and charged headlong into hailstorms of flying lead. Generally, warfare was divided between the front and the rear lines, but "The War Below" depicts with grim accuracy the little-known war beneath the lines. Indeed, the campaign waged underground promised far less allure than earthbound frontline warfare or behind-the-lines espionage. Earlier, during the American Civil War, in 1864, the Union Army struggled to oust tenacious Confederate soldiers from their stronghold at Petersburg, Virginia. Repeated failures prompted the Union to tunnel beneath rebel lines and denotate as much as 320 kegs of gunpowder, essentially 8,000 pounds of explosives, to obliterate the Southerners. Unfortunately, the plan backfired on the Union. The gunpowder opened a crater 170 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 30 feet deep that killed 352 Confederates. Sadly, however, Union soldiers got themselves pinned down in the crater during the attack. Lee's Army killed 504 soldiers, many of them African American, and turned defeat into victory. Trench warfare had created a stalemate during the Petersburg siege, and Grant had refused to launch a front assault on the entrenched rebels. Fifty years later, in West Flanders, Belgium, near the village of Messines, the British and German Armies battled to a stalemate in a predicament similar to Petersburg.

"The War Below" opens with this brief preface: "September 1915. The Great War. Bloodshed, which was meant to be over by Christmas, still has no end in sight. Throughout Britain, able-bodied men sign up to bolster the ranks, to do their duty. Those who refuse are given a white feather, labelled as cowards and traitors." British fathers and son flock to enlist. Married with a young son, a middle-aged miner, William Hawkin (Sam Hazeldine of "Killers Anonymous"),is one of many patriots who desperately want to serve King George in the military. Of course, William's wife isn't impressed with his patriotism. Unfortunately, William is found unfit for the army. An Army physician frowns at the 'crackle' in William's breathing. As he listens to his stethoscope, the doctor complains about "an irregularity" in William's heartbeat that he believes is "genetic in all probability." "I can do it, sir," William pleads with the physician. "I just want to do my bit." Nevertheless, William's pleas fall on deaf ears.

Meantime, at British Army Headquarters in Whitehall, Field Marshal Lord Haig (Douglas Reith of "Downton Abbey") finds casualty reports appalling. Over 40,000 Englishmen have died during one of the latest battles against the Kaiser's troops. Moreover, the British have had no luck blasting the dreaded Germans out of their trenches. The chief problem is the Huns have buried their bunkers 30 feet deep into the French soil, and this has nullified British artillery barrages. Haig is stupefied that as many as a million and a half artillery shells have fallen with little effect on the enemy. Facing the grim prospect of a Britain defeat, Haig announces the Army must conjure up a new offensive. One of Haig's junior officers, Lt. Colonel John Norton-Griffiths (Tom Goodman-Hill of "The Imitation Game"),better known as 'Hellfire Jack,' proposes an alternative that Haig finds preposterous. Nevertheless, he lets the Colonel pursue it. Jack proposes the military use real-life miners to teach his men how to dig a proper tunnel under 'no-man's land' that will come up under the German fieldworks and then pack it with enough TNT to blow the Germans "to kingdom come." Hellfire Jack approaches a mining company that agrees reluctantly to help the military. When he puts his proposition to the miners, they are as dubious as Field Marshal Lord Haig about the scheme's success . They argue they can dig better tunnels faster than the regular soldiers, and Haig gives them the chance to prove it. Hellfire Jack requests four months to do the impossible. Predictably, Haig allows him only two months. William Hawkin (Sam Hazeldine),Harold Stockford (Kris Hitchen),Shorty (Joseph Steyne),George MacDonald (Elliot James Langridge),and Charlie MacDonald (Sam Clemmett) wind up in uniform, but the soldiers hold them in contempt as little more than 'sewer workers.'

Freshman director J. P. Watts and rookie writer Thomas Woods hammer out the premise of "The War Below" succinctly in the film's initial 20 minutes, then spend the rest of this gritty 96-minute yarn underground. Our heroes are surprised when they discover the sly Germans are up to similar subterranean shenanigans. One of the British miners monitors the enemy with a stethoscope as the Huns burrow their own tunnels. Lenser Nick Cooke plunges audiences into the claustrophobic bowels of the earth where Hawkin and company hollow out a tunnel 30 feet below the surface. Eventually, Hawkin warns Hellfire Jack they must sink their tunnel 100 feet beneath German lines to avoid detection! Mind you, "The War Below" isn't a standard-issue, blood & guts war film like either the spectacular "1917" (2019) or the superlative "King's Man" (2021). Nevertheless, this true-life World War I gamble did occur and changed the fortunes of war for the British. Despite overwhelming odds and interference from competing German tunnels, our grubby miners save the day and touch off an Armageddon of an explosion that clinched the Battle of Messines and annihilated 10, 000 German soldiers! Armchair legionnaires looking for an offbeat example of World War I heroics may dig "The War Below."