I am a sucker for a single take. Give me a movie scene, a whole episode, with a single unbroken take. The craftsmanship it takes to hide the camera breaks, the skill it takes to remain in the scene and get everything done. I just love it.

 1917 is a single-take movie set on the Western Front during World War I. A pair of British soldiers are sent on a desperate mission to warn a general of a trap set by the Germans, a false retreat designed to bring the British in so they can be surrounded. Lance Corporals William Schofield and Thomas Blake are run-of-the-mill infantrymen, remarkable in how unremarkable they are. No special equipment, not especially skilled or expirienced. Both men are undeniably average in the best way. Blake’s brother is in the potentially doomed battalion, so he is motivated by more than duty as both he and Schofield are sent on this desperate mission across the wastes of the Western Front.

 WWI is known for trench warfare and manmade horrors the likes of which the world had never seen. It was an industrial war that sacrificed hundreds of thousands of men for sometimes as little as a doze feet. So the idea of a desperate mission to save 1,600 men is not realistic. In fact, at the time, an offensive that lost only 1,600 would have been considered a success. I generally don’t mind historical inaccuracies in a movie so long as what is changed serves the story and I think it does here. More realistic numbers of soldiers in danger might seem like a small detail, but the focus isn’t the mission; it’s the men, and for Blake it’s his brother.

 When Sam Mendes is good, he is great. I don’t love every movie he’s made, but I always appreciate the work he does as a director. Jarhead did not age well and the less that is said about Spectre, the better. The work that he and Roger Deakins did to highlight the smallness of the soldiers and the barren, deadly landscape never lets you forget how perilous this mission really is. There is an extended sequence in the film with excellent use of shadows and flares in a bombed-out town, set against a cold night and a German platoon.

 The movie is a who’s who of British actors. You’ll recognize almost all the faces, a few names, and an Oscar winner or two. George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman are the stars, but the bigger actors, who have much less time on screen, do some of the best work in the movie. Benedict Cumberbatch and Colin Firth are both great as exhausted and desperate flag officers. The standout is Andrew Scott as Lieutenant Leslie, a dirty and battered junior officer in the trenches at the very front. His lack of military decorum and generally weathered face hint at the emotional dangers the two main characters might face.

 1917 is more than the one-take gimmick. It’s an emotional journey about two soldiers in a hopeless, thankless, near-impossible situation. Despite any misgivings about the biggest historical inaccuracy, this is a movie worth watching.