‘Landship’ Review: Callum Burns’ WWI Thriller is Hell in a Steel Box

Courtesy of Kaleidoscope Entertainment

Before I go into my review of this movie, let it be known that I am no history buff. Besides some cinematic forays (on both the small and big screen), the most that has ever sunk into my noggin regarding World War I or World War II has mostly come from junior high school. History classes, studying for exams, reading pages upon pages from a textbook. The usual things.

Did director Callum Burns’ new survival war film somehow change my place? Do I now want to take a deep dive into the theatre of war?

No . . . but that’s because Landship was more than enough to satisfy any longing I might have had for the subject. It was messy, dirty, claustrophobic, horror-coded and . . . well straight up hellish at times. These are not the adjectives you would typically find in any educational sense but for a movie, these remain to be some very good descriptive terms. It takes the usual tropes that you would expect to find in a war flick and cranks the natural intensity and severity - at the very least - up to an eleven. During the eighty nine minutes that you are with this historical MKIV tank crew, you certainly won’t find one performance that is weak.

Landship takes place during World War I and specifically during the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele. Nine men (headed by actor Vin Hawke’s Captain Donald Richardson) become trapped in no-man’s-land (much closer to the enemy than they would like) due to a mud pit formed by a giant shell crater. With limited supplies and mental capacities dwindling, the small steel box that is the Mark IV tank becomes their only lasting defense against the Germans.

Right off the bat, I have to say that some restraint must be given when analyzing the world outside of the tank in Landship. This is where the immersion spell breaks in some regard - the literal fog of war made by the artillery debris, the gunfire and the night is all there is when it comes to the environment (besides the mud, some barbed wire, a post and the tank). The visual is kind of flat in that regard.

Like I hinted at before though, the chemistry of the main cast - especially when it comes to inside the tank - is superb and deserves all the honors. Hawke does a fantastic job at playing a conflicted captain. Director Burns masterfully weaves in and out of the available perspectives in this tight space while all the while keeping it close and mighty claustrophobic. It’s cozy for character development but also chaotic for tension-building. Full conversations are had while another soldier is just a few feet away crying out from delirium.

David Dobson, Matthew Canny, Jack Sherlock, Micky David, Ricky Oakley, Daniel Cornish, Sam Dowdy, Nadav Burstein and Jeffrey Mundell all play various ranks that accompany Hawke’s character on this survival crusade - and they all easily earn it too. There isn’t a moment where you question if the part they play was actually needed or if they fit the character (who were all based on real people by the way). Because of the situation with the MKIV, the camaraderie naturally has highs and lows that only intensifies with the actual waves of enemies that come pouring in at one point.

Speaking of the opposition, I do appreciate the stylistic touch of having every foot soldier of the German Empire that our brave MKIV squadron go up against (either from a distance or up close) wear a gas mask. Yes, it is in fact historically accurate but the combination of not being able to see much distance-wise and making the enemy into a twisted faceless monster makes this specific story of the Battle of Passchendaele seem almost otherworldly. Director Burns and the entire behind the scenes crew on Landship capitalized on a few details - with the budget they had - and made this survival war story into a survival horror story (almost taking place on another planet even).

Such an approach makes the reveal that much more rewarding and in Landship - that pays off tremendously. Even though we know who the villain is from the get-go, the faceoff between Richardson and an unmasked German soldier will have you holding your breath. Rather than two humans facing off, the confrontation feels more like a human facing off against the leader of many, many hellish creatures.

I will give Landship a 4 out of 5.

Even though the film has no US timetable as of yet, Landship has been officially released into select UK theatres as of June 26th, 2026.