Nice review! I remember a completely different movie (been awhile). I look forward to watching it again because the same themes are back.

Is it really the "frustrations of organizational life" that he's up against?

My read of the movie is the war is winding down, as you pointed out. A new German bomb is proving to be a small nuisance in England. The newspapers aren't blaring "Dangerous German Bomb: Our Best Minds Are Working On It!"

Instead, English industry is already turning into profit mode. What weapons will bring in the most funding? It's not that they don't understand the statistics; they don't care. They only numbers they care about are those that would make them money.

So they're happy to give a pittance in funding to this lone bomb expert to file the problem away. The missing foot is a physical symbol of his being war refuse.

What I LOVE about the movie, all their movies, is it isn't preachy. There's no speech about how the English defense industry only cares about money.

When he defuses the bomb on the beach, life go on around him. If the bomb went off would anyone notice him slumping onto the sand?

Today we probably have the same thing in Ukraine. Everyone stepping over each other to make money. There's probably some limbless Ukrainian in his back room working on tech to defuse mines in Ukraine. Everyone feels sorry for him. But it is US we should feel sorry for.