"Journey's End" makes for a claustrophobic and tense movie experience. It's quite clearly a film adaptation of a stage play, but it's a surprise (to me at least) that the stage play - penned by R.C. Sherriff - dates back to 1928 and was first performed in London by a young Laurence Olivier.

You might say "A filmed stage play? Hm... I'm not sure about that". But actually, it works really well, adding brilliantly to the claustrophobic nature of the piece but - more importantly - largely eschewing "action scenes" to focus in on the dramatic relationships between the officers in their dugout and the men in the trenches above.

The plot is a simple one. Set in the spring of 1918 (arguably, the movie might have been even more powerful had its release been delayed by about 6 weeks),Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin, "Me Before You", "Their Finest") leads a company of men marching into position in a trench near Saint-Quentin, Aisne for a six-day tour of duty. Given they are one of 1,800 such companies on the Western Front, it's unfortunately their bad luck that the German's "spring offensive" is forecast to happen imminently. As Stanhope's CO (the excellent Robert Glennister, "Live by Night", TV's "Hustle") makes clear, and as the film's title might also suggest, this is forecast to be a one-way trip.

With immaculate timing, squeaky-keen young recruit Lieutenant Raleigh (Asa Butterfield, "Hugo") uses his brass-connections to join the company, since he knows Stanhope from his schooldays. Indeed, Stanhope is his sister's beau. But Raleigh soon discovers that Stanhope is no longer the 'affable chap' he was....

Butterfield is marvelously cast as the perky new recruit, all wide-eyed and eager on arrival but completely ill-equipped for what he is to see and experience in a confined society being stretched beyond breaking point. Claflin as well is superb, and must have spent hours in front of a mirror trying to perfect his haunted expression. The range of emotions he delivers through those eyes is just extraordinary. Finally rounding out the star-turns of the officers are Paul Bettany ("Avengers: Age of Ultron") as the avuncular Osborne and Tom Sturridge ("Far From The Madding Crowd") as the shell-shocked and useless Hibbert.

Those of you familiar with the splendid "Black Adder Goes Forth" will know the comic role played by Tony Robinson as Baldrick with his strange culinary concoctions. In this film Toby Jones ("Atomic Blonde", "Dad's Army") fills that role and similarly has some comic lines to add - just a touch of - much needed light-relief to the tension.

The film has a necessarily melancholic feel, but (for me) it's rather over-egged by the sonorous cello score by Natalie Holt and Hildur Gudnadóttir. (Again, reflecting our different tastes, I'll point out that my wife found the music fitting and not as annoying and intrusive as I did).

Director Sean Dibb (Suite Française) has here delivered a tense and very well-executed movie that ably demonstrates the British "stiff upper lip" in public - and the weak whiskey-soaked psychosis in private - of men under the most unbearable stress imaginable. Recommended... but go expecting something that's more drama than World War One 'action'.

(For the full graphical review, please visit bob-the-movie-man.com. Thanks.)

The similarities to 1930's "All Quiet on the Western Front" are unmistakable, even if the emphasis is on sobering dialog rather than all out battle action. So I was absolutely amazed doing a search here on IMDb to learn that this title, based on a stage play dating back to 1928, was originally filmed in the same year that 'All Quiet...' won a Best Picture Academy Award. The movie successfully conveys the utter desperation and futility of life and death in a war time situation, but it's forcefully brought home not by soldiers marching off into battle, but by the realization that due to an unfortunate alignment of time and circumstance, the company in question will be rotated to the front lines precisely during the week that an imminent German attack is planned on their position. The principal characters convey, via both dialog and attitude, how they react to that knowledge and how they prepare themselves for the unknowable inevitability of their fate. The film has a dark and claustrophobic feel, as most of the story takes place in the bunker-like premises of the officers quarters, physically removed from, but right next to the soldiers they command. In some respects, the setting resembles that of a typical war time submarine movie, in which the confined area contributes to the emotional stress that weighs on disparate personalities getting in each other's way. In preparation for the German advance, a British Colonel (Robert Glenister) determines that a small scale intrusion against the German position with the intent of capturing an enemy soldier might offer valuable information on the Germans next move. Though that mission proves successful, the physical toll it takes on the company leads to the mental breakdown of Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin),already preconditioned for tragedy by his preference for alcohol. What follows is a rather abrupt ending to the story, one that also claims the life of young Second Lieutenant James Raleigh (Asa Butterfield),a former school mate of Stanhope, who advocated for his assignment with all the lure of glory in battle that youthful naivete anticipates. With the movie's close, one comes away with the unsettled feeling that the same scenario will be played once more, as the pre-credits sequence informs that the German spring offensive that claimed over seven hundred thousand victims would be countermanded by Britain and her allies just a few weeks later to take control of the same dismal patch of ground once again.

JOURNEY'S END is a brand-new adaptation of a classic WW1 play by R.C. Sherriff. The story is virtually entirely set in a dugout, where various characters await their instructions and being sent 'over the top' by command. It's essentially a character study of how these men cope with the stress of awaiting battle and imminent death, and obviously there are powerful scenes as certain ones crack up while others plough on. It's my first exposure to the Sherriff play and it's certainly a grim and gritty experience, brought to life here by the esteemed talents of Stephen Graham, Paul Bettany and in particular Sam Claflin.