Landship Impresses with DIY Resolve

In many military movies, whether the setting is on land, at sea, or in the air, the assembled group of soldiers is only as strong as its commanding officer. Sure, there’s often a pecking order between the enlisted commoners and those with a few more pins or stripes on their uniforms, but they go as their leader goes. Landship, highlighting the notable history of Great Britain’s most decorated tank crew in World War I, follows that tried-and-true storytelling staple dutifully, resting the dramatic weight on the shoulders of Vin Hawke’s Captain Donald Richardson.

What commonly constitutes that weight is a leader’s extra level of resolve. They’ve been given orders and jobs to accomplish. They must make the difficult decisions that can mean life or death to the men and women in their charge. Top leaders take on this pressure and thrive in it, though they are far from perfect and unflappable. Landship puts that precise test of human fortitude on its highlighted officer.

About halfway through the film and its chronicle of a harrowing 60-hour ordeal, ammunition is dwindling, crew members—including himself—have been wounded or killed, and water is running even lower than the supply of bullets. The men of the F41 “Fray Bentos” tank are scared and testy. When Richardson receives pushback, his stern, rallying line is “Knuckle under, or I will bring the hammer down.” Later, when things are worse and pistols are pointed, that dialogue turns harsher with “Don’t test me.”

Alas, that adversity and burden of leadership match the horrors of war, especially this brutal 20th-century conflict, which is given historical context through archival footage during the opening titles. By this point in Landship, we know exactly what kind of man Donald Richardson is, and our understanding is cemented as soundly as it is for his crew at this tipping point. This display of determination, led by Vin Hawke’s stoic performance, matches the excellent effort of the movie itself, directed and co-written by war film specialist Callum Burn.

In the hours before this crucial moment, the MKIV tank was chugging and churning across No Man’s Land on the famed Western Front, near the prized high ground of Ypres, ahead of manned infantry with orders to destroy dangerous machine gun placements on the German side of the expanse. With its methodical mechanical trudge and two gears, the MKIV was neither agile nor fast and carried narrow views for navigation. What it lacked in speed, it made up for in toughness, with an outer shell that could absorb gunfire as it drew attention away from the men on the ground and large guns that could blast fortified bunkers to kingdom come.

In Landship, these advantages and disadvantages are seen in functional action, not in “Oh wait” or “Oh no” reactionary, exhibition-filling jargon. The vehicle’s superiority is challenged when low visibility through a smoky arena leads the Fray Bentos to take a wrong pivot and become tilted and stuck in the bombarded mud. Now immobile with no reinforcements nearby, the crew is pinned with only its tough skin between survival and death by gun, grenade, or bayonet.

The intensity of this predicament in Landship is made all the more agonizing by the outstanding use of smoke, small sets, and reduced lighting by Callum Burn (tripling as the editor and VFX supervisor), co-writer and production designer Andrew Burn, director of photography Sam Parson, and his all-hands-on-deck production team. The very first scene of the movie is Vin Hawke (A Burn regular from Battle Over Britain, Lancaster Skies, and Spitfire Over Berlin), before we get to know him as Donald Richardson, trying to push through this fog—muddy and bloody on foot—with a pistol drawn as stalking, faceless Germans in gas masks and spiked clubs strafe around his perimeter. Sound trickery from composer and sound designer/editor/mixer Ben Thatcher (Remnant) heightens the sensory nerves nicely. By the time odds reach a surrender-of-fight level, and everyone is caked in Aimee Booth’s extra-soiled hair and makeup, we’re knuckling under ourselves.

The tight quarters of the tank set and enveloping twilight mist turn Landship into a compressed saga operating with “bottle movie” simplicity to hide the cinematic strings, so to speak, while maximizing the potential for suspense. The roller coaster of camaraderie and doubt among the ensemble of actors playing the team holds the tightness of this wringer the entire running time. Outside of a couple of asides told in downtime by Hawke or David Dobson as 2nd Lieutenant George Hill, or a recited Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel or two, longer monologues or get-to-know-you character stumps are traded for purpose and action. Next to Hawke and Dobson, the biggest impressions from this hungry, young cast are made by Hedda’s Jack Sherlock as the arguing Pvt. Morrey and TV star Matthew Canny as Sergeant Robert Missen.

Taking a page from last year’s Warfare, from the directorial team of Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, Callum Burn stays on the mission without extra theatrical fluff. As the true story attests, this was the kind of battlefield moment that did not lead to ticker-tape parades or heroic homecomings. Landship, like Mendoza’s relentless odyssey, sticks to one solid episode of ordinary men surviving the worst of the worst for the man next to them, not medals pinned to chests or future storybook or silver screen glory. Dramatic license aside, witnessing the unbelievable made fluid and palpable—and the huge DIY effort to make it happen—becomes powerful enough without bigger patriotic swells unfurled for escapism’s sake.