Darkest Hour film review- by John Campea

Full text transcript of the Darkest Hour film review

Hey there, everybody, welcome to my movie vlog, my name’s John Kampia, and this is my quick review of the brand new Gary Oldman film, Darkest Hour.

I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m going to tell you right up front. Darkest hour has instantly cracked easily my top three films of the year and might actually be my favorite movie of twenty seventeen so far. At its core, Darkest Hour is about an all too human man thrown in the middle of the most unimaginable, inhuman set of circumstances. One of the really interesting aspects of darkest hour is that it follows a very short period of time. The entire movie takes place within the span of like three or four weeks. It starts the day before Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of the United Kingdom and ends and is never surrender speech that he gives to parliament. And it’s significant to mention that finite window of time that the entire movie takes place.

And because one of the things that Director Joe Wright does, this little device he uses throughout the film is that, you know, we constantly see the calendar moving like May 10th, May 11th, May 15th, and you become really overwhelmed with how much is really happening in such a short period of time. Winston Churchill becomes prime minister rather unexpectedly, and then the weight of the world is dropped on him like a piano falling from an apartment building. And while I’m sure there was probably a temptation to portray Winston Churchill as this titan among the gods, unshakable, unvaluable, they decided instead to show the real humanity of Winston Churchill, No.

One, his flaws and frailties showing that he can be rude and he can rub people the wrong way. Sometimes he is right for doing so, but quite often times he’s wrong. And often when we think of Winston Churchill, we think of this unshakable conviction, this man who is steadfast in his direction. But one of the beautiful things about darkest hour is that it shows Winston Churchill in the midst of these crazy circumstances, the most inhumane of times, that he has self-doubt, he has reflection, he has fear. He shows that as a human being, with all these people trying to sway him off his course, he’s susceptible to being swayed off his course and then has to be brought back on.

The fact that they showed so much of Winston Churchill’s humanity in this movie makes his steadfastness and his strength seem all that more inspiring. And on that note, you’ve got to mention, of course, the great Gary Oldman performance as Winston Churchill. Gary Oldman, of course, probably the best actor alive today who doesn’t have an Oscar on his mantel. You know what? We haven’t yet seen Phantom Thread yet with Daniel Day Lewis. So notwithstanding that, you might as well just put the Oscar in the package now and just send it to Gary Oldman because this dude deserves it.

Hands down again. We got to see what Daniel Day Lewis does. But I mean, this was the performance of a lifetime for the film. Not surprisingly, since it’s about Winston Churchill is also incredibly inspiring. There’s this one scene I won’t give away the context of it, but Winston Churchill sitting in a subway with a bunch of common people in Britain and talking to them. And I turned to my wife who’s sitting beside me, and she’s in tears just because it’s so beautiful.

A show puts on display not just the spirit of Winston Churchill, but the human spirit, the spirit of people who are living in Britain of that time, the spirit of human desire to thrive and move forward and courage and bravery and all of that. And it affected people in the cinema that I was in, including my wife beside me. Oldman is also fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of really strong supporting performances. Let me start with the Lili James Lili James character, who’s kind of like a pseudo secretary to Winston Churchill, is a really interesting character, because I thought I thought at first I was thinking this character is really rather useless. There’s no point to this character. But then I realised that the Lili James character was really kind of functioning as an avatar for us.

The audience. We were sort of looking at this story from Lili James’s point of view. We were looking at the man, Winston Churchill, from her point of view, and it was looking at the movie through that lens that kind of allowed us to see his frailty, his flaws of character, but also frailty of nature at the same time. And I started to really appreciate the way that you’re right, the director of the film was using that character, and I ended up loving her.

And I got to admit, when I first heard that Ben Mendelsohn was going to be playing King George, I thought, well, I’m a really big fan of Ben Mendelsohn, as most of us are. But I thought that’s a really odd choice. Perfection. He was so great as King George. And some of my favorite scenes in this movie are when Gary Oldman, Winston Churchill and Ben Mendelsohn’s King George are in the room talking together. They have several scenes together that and those are so my fear. They the dynamic between them was fantastic, but also stirring and inspiring all at the same time bringing some comic relief, but also bringing the weight of the circumstances to it at the same time. Mendelssohn was fantastic in this. The story is fantastic. The performances are fantastic.

The dialogue is fantastic. I got to tell you, I just ate this film up. Now, this isn’t like the best critically reviewed film of the year. I’m kind of scratching my head as to how it’s not. I thought this thing was just bloody. And again, it might even be my favorite film of the year so far, I’m not 100 percent sure, but it goes without saying. I highly encourage and I highly recommend you to run out and see darkest hour the moment you can. I think you’ll be glad that you did. So that’ll do it for my review of Darkest Hour. The most important thing here, though, guys, is what do you think about this?

Have you been one of the few people who’ve had a chance to see it yet? If so, jump of the comments section Lemi, your thoughts? What have been your expectations? If you haven’t seen it yet, I want to hear from you. Listen guys, while you’re here, make sure you subscribe to this YouTube channel. Make sure you click the thumbs up button, leave a thought and opinion in the comments section below and make sure you follow me on social media, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, just at John Kampia. That’ll do it for me for now. Guys, thanks a lot for joining me. My name is John Kampia. And until the next video, Bobbye.