The trenchant Christian Bale, always an actor who can make everything he does seem important but remote, struggles to portray a battle-hardened Captain of the Union army.

Ultimately this is a hard movie to recommend – it does attempt some important themes but it’s overlong and just too cheerless to sit through considering the lack of ingenuity within the narrative. The only real question it poses is why Rosamund Pike’s career hasn’t taken off since the three year old Gone Girl. She delivers a phenomenal performance here as well and deserves more interesting projects.