Review by paul_m_haakonsen

While I had never heard about this 2024 war movie titled "Before Dawn", I must admit that I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch it on account of it being a war movie.

However, writers Jordon Prince-Wright and Jarrad Russell delivered a slow paced movie, so very, very slow. You have to sit through more than 60 minutes of the movie where nothing worthwhile really happens. So more than half of the movie was squandered on setting the stage and establishing characters, but not really succeeding in any great way of doing so. And that just didn't really pan out all that well in terms of providing proper entertainment for me.

I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but I will say that the acting performances were fair, despite the fact that the movie's script failed to get off to a proper running start.

Visually then "Before Dawn" was good, it definitely looked and felt like a war movie. Though it was a bit odd why all the trenches were so shallow that the soldiers had to constantly hunch over in order to move without being shot. There were some nice attention to details, and the uniforms were good.

I am sure that diehard war movie fans will enjoy "Before Dawn" a lot more than I did, especially if you don't mind a slow paced narrative that focuses on establishing characters.

While I managed to sit through 100 minutes that the movie ran for, director Jordon Prince-Wright didn't really manage to entertain me all that much. And this is definitely not a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time. I have to admit that I was definitely expecting a bit more action from a movie such as this, and it felt like it was a squandered opportunity to show some great trench warfare on the screen.

My rating of "Before Dawn" lands on a less than mediocre four out of ten stars.