Actors shine in sloggy trenches of war drama 'Journey's End'

<h3 class="briefHead">"Journey's End" - ★ ★ ½</h3>

Stagy and deliberate in its pacing, the earnest World War I drama "Journey's End" provides a wonderful opportunity for its cast members to demonstrate some actorly acting in the service of a story that attests once again to the sorrow, loss and inhumanity created by armed conflict.

Asa Butterfield's penetrating blue-gray eyes dominate the moody frames in Saul "The Duchess" Dibb's translation of R.C. Sheriff's acclaimed 1928 stage play (originally starring Laurence Olivier), first adapted into a 1930 movie directed by James Whale just before he unleashed "Frankenstein."

Butterfield plays young Raleigh, a freshly minted British soldier dispatched to the trenches of northern France exactly 100 years ago this very month.

Raleigh requested this posting to serve under Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin). They attended school together and Stanhope's a potential husband for Raleigh's sister.

The threat of imminent attack by German forces takes a toll on the British, especially Lt. Osborne (Paul Bettany) and Stanhope, now an alcohol-infused bundle of nerves. The officers know their company will likely be wiped out, sacrificed to slow down the German advance.

So they politely bide their time with fond remembrances of happier days as a score of mournful strings constantly laments their impending doom.

"Journey's End" depicts physical warfare twice, welcome attempts to "open up" the virtual single-set needs of the story. Yet, none of the action comes close to the intensity and artful design of Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" or the visual inventions of "All Quiet on the Western Front."

Dibb does appreciate shots of military boots slogging through soupy mud in the trenches, suggesting that war isn't just hell, it's also messy.

<b>Starring:</b> Asa Butterfield, Paul Bettany, Sam Claflin, Toby Jones

<b>Directed by:</b> Saul Dibb

<b>Other:</b> A Good Deed Entertainment release. At the Century Centre in Chicago. Rated R for language, war violence. 107 minutes