Before Dawn

I had trouble suspending disbelief. To start with, for all the effort that has gone into digging trenches and sourcing uniforms, I was never entirely persuaded that the heroes were fighting on the Western Front.

There were times, particularly early on, when I couldn’t help but think, “These are just actors performing in a hole in the ground.”

The script needs a bit more time, a bit more work, the direction needs a bit more finessing, the acting is as it can with the writing and direction, and the cinematography saves the film from feeling like a bit of a waste of time.

Before Dawn had the potential to rise above an oversaturation of World War movies, but fails to deliver substantive character development and smooth editing.



There are no new ideas in Before Dawn.


The trench-set drama is poignant, and the film does deliver some important emotional lessons.

Though the plot has a somewhat frustrating lack of direction, Prince-Wright uses the story of a single soldier and his noble companions to highlight the futility of war in and of itself.

Grand ambitions fall victim to budget constraints and a pedestrian script in this Australian war drama.

The difficult part about Before Dawn is how the passage of time causes it to float in malaise.

It feels like the work of someone who has watched a lot of movies about war but doesn’t really know much about the subject.