Sam Mendes' 1917 - WWI an Impossible Mission Relentlessly Driven

Sam Mendes' Golden Globe winning film "1917" is a WWI movie that follow 2 British soldiers assigned to cross over the frontlines into Nazi war zones.  The men are ordered to deliver a message to prevent an allied military launch ascertained as doomed to fail.  Soldiers, Schofield (George MacKay) & Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman)  orders are to carry a written message from the General (Colin Firth) to the Colonel (Benedict Cumberbatch) in charge of a cadre 1,600 soldiers about to be slaughtered in an assured, deadly ambush.  One of the men in this regiment is the Blake's brother making the mission personal and similar to the premise in "Saving Pvt. Ryan."  Mendes wrote & directed this WWI film which is an unrelenting race against time & countless deadly hurdles in order to save thousands of lives.  I don't readily choose to mitigate the power of the film's authenticity and harrowing action.  This is an exceptional war film that puts you in the trenches of WWI and onto the corpse riddled battlefields with affecting tension & horror.  Both Schofield and Blake are exceptional in their demanding roles.  Firth, Cumberbatch along with Andrew Scott as commanding officers have little time on screen but take full charge of their parts.  Again, I don't wish to battle with this astounding & affecting war movie but Mendes' set some minor booby traps that did a disservice to full immersion into the film's impactful intensity.  The editing was remarkable but its overriding or over hyped visual techniques ambushed the viewer into trying to discern flaws.  The musical score landed like a grenade in the terrain of credibility.  And, the tender interaction between Schofield and a French woman & infant, though beautiful, was too heavy handed.  War is hell.  "1917" takes the audience to hell and back.  It's exceptional storytelling with indelible imagery and just a few minor drawbacks.