Movie review of Darkest Hour- by What The Flick

Full text transcript of the movie review of Darkest Hour

Why have I been forced to send for Chacho, just record is a catastrophe.

You see your true qualities, your lack of vanity, like your sense of humor. Oh ho ho.

Your Majesty, it is my duty to invite you to take up the position of prime minister of this United Kingdom.

Hey, we’re going to get the flick, Ben, Christy, Alonzo, it’s Oscar time, which means famous actors puts on put on lots of makeup and play historical figures and that’s happening again.

So the darkest hour. This is weird. This is a Hollywood star playing Winston Churchill.

So it’s very bold. So that happens a lot.

The this is in the early days of the Second World War.

There’s a change of power in in Great Britain. Neville Chamberlain’s out. In comes Winston Churchill, played here by Gary Oldman.

And it is about sort of as Christi mentioned, if you want to describe this movie, it’s Dunkirk told from Winston Churchill’s point of view that is not far off.

And, you know, this is a Churchill whipping the country up to recognise that they need to do whatever they can to fight the Nazi scourge. I love whatever the cost may be.

We should fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never forget Don.

For without victory, there can be no survival. Interesting. This is our second Churchill movie of the year. Yes, we totally forgot that there was a whole another movie called Churchill. Oh yeah. Starring Brian Guy.

And we had John Lithgow on the ground and Lithgow in the crowd. So they’re all sort of happening as the crowd Donners there, 2006.

And then and this is the sort of the third Dunkirk movie this year or two after they’re minus that other one.

Churchill is having a moment. I’m going to drop three names here, please, at Norman Lloyd’s birthday party.

I was talking to him.

I was talking to Tim Matheson.

And nobody told me what was cool was that Brian Cox, of all people, since had his iPad the entire time during that movie with the TKM watching old movies. So God bless God bless America.

So when did this get right that Churchill did not? I didn’t I didn’t see the other night. Did you do that? Which is a really super showy performance. Did we not review it on here? I didn’t think I’ve seen Churchill. And this is it the same era? No. And so this is Joe Wright.

And a lot of the beef with Joe Wright is that it’s flashy, kind of showy camerawork, not necessarily propping up a story that is all that substantive or all that engaging or whatever. But here you have the two work together really well. I mean, you look at like atonement, right? But they don’t like atonement. Right. That’s when you think of the long seven minute long tracking shot in the beach. Right. So I feel like he gets a bad rap for showiness over substance.

And I hear that the two I don’t know that it’s a bad rap, but I think it’s an earth and the very, very beginning in it.

I mean, the first shot is like an overhead shot of parliament.

Right. And if it goes down and then it comes through the corridor and there was like cool, amazing, dramatic lighting that probably did not actually exist. And so you think, OK, I’m in for something that is just going to be visually dazzling and nothing more and it bends. Look at me like, oh, you’re talking about cinematography. This is the acting is so strong, not just from Gary Oldman, who is unrecognizable, but Kristin Scott Thomas greatness.

Yes, that’s sort of the main ways to me, the best part, because is their relationship right? Because there’s a if you’re looking for ways to humanize Churchill in ways that perhaps you haven’t you’re not familiar with, like he he becomes a, you know, a loving husband with a really solid relationship with his wife, who’s sort of provides a significant backbone for him and a sounding board. And he relies on her in that part, I thought worked nicely.

She says, equal in dignity.

So those are those are my favorite parts, too, because I feel like as a historical drama, you know, when you know how a thing is going to turn out, you can still make that interesting and you can make it suspenseful or whatever. You know, I mean, there are a lot of great movies that, you know, I would say the Apollo 13 effect, like, you know, they’re going to they’re going to be safe.

But how are the how is it going to happen, you know? Thirty three. How do they get out the moon. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

But like, so this one, it’s like, OK, we know that he’s going to get his way and they’re going to go fight the Nazis. But like, you know, the decision making along the way, like the choices that he made that we now historically know were the right ones, but at the time were so controversial, I didn’t get enough of that or at least enough of the with what he had to fight for and what he who he had to convince to make that work. It just this to me felt like another movie where we could sort of pat ourselves on the back because we were writing about Hitler, you know, and, you know, I think there’s so many World War Two movies kind of fall into this category of unquestionable good guys and unquestionable bad guys. And, you know, you can find drama in there still. But I don’t think this movie does.

I don’t think there was a lot of drama here. I don’t I think that there were a lot of amazing performances. And, you know, and his speech is one of the great speeches ever, one of the two or three best speeches ever delivered. And so I was waiting the entire movie for the speech. And they did a very nice thing. I thought, although people I talked to after the movie, the scene where he sort of there’s a scene where Churchill goes onto the subway.

Oh, they were saying to the home, oh, my God, that’s such bullshit. That’s exactly what exactly. I did not buy it for a second. I don’t buy it either, but I love it. Oh, I love it.

So, again, so showy, so full of visual flair. The understatement of that moment, honestly, that actually happens now for a moment. Like you see the kindness that his wife alludes to in the beginning, which she fears he has lost, and talking to actual people.

I love that we don’t hear such a horse. Probably is. No, but I mean. But even as presented, though, it is such a like come sit on the prime minister’s lap and tell him what you want for Christmas. I mean, it’s like I oh, that that scene made me that like knocked my score down. I stood up for me.

So the. Yeah. So the idea that Churchill sort of snuck away from his one security guard or whatever and entered the tube is probably unlikely. I don’t know, I don’t know enough Churchill history to know where he got those lines. Right. We’ll fight them on the beaches. We’ll fight them. But the suggestion is, is that.

People said, oh, we’ll fight them in the subways, we’ll fight them on the beaches. And so to me, I thought, that’s great if that happened, that’s so nice.

But that’s just like the man who invented Christmas lights around Charles Dickens with people who say things like are the new workhouses, you know? And he just has to write it down.

I’m not saying I think it happened. I think it works narratively, provides context, perspective. I hear all of that. I just disagree with that. This is what I think.

I mean, this is this is this is this is going to be this history will tell us that this is the story of darkest hour. People who thought that scene was shit, people who thought that scene was great because that was exactly what it was afterwards. I was like, man, I love that scene. I was thinking I was again, I saw in Telluride traveling back with somebody, you know, like I really like that scene on the subway.

You’re like, that’s even what’s wrong with you, right? Yeah. Amandas red team subway team knows that.

I want to mention Bruno del Bernell shot this. It’s beautiful as it do films are. He also shot Inside Llewyn Davis. And a lot of this film feels like it was shot in black and white kind of way.

That Mendelssohn always great to see, but he was particularly good as King George. You don’t really sort of don’t wouldn’t associate him with. Right. But the but the drama that that you’re supposed to get from those challenging Churchill when he was up against. You’re totally right. It just didn’t like it didn’t it didn’t resonate as drama. I didn’t care. I would rather have seen more meals with a Gary Oldman and Kristen Scott. Sure.

If you like typewriter’s lots of great vintage, like, you know, covid equipment and that kind of stuff. And then the Lily James character. So he has an assistant. And that I didn’t I didn’t get that is so the. Hi, I’m your audience surrogate. I do it to this world. Yeah, she’s fine. She’s she’s. But why don’t we know she is she shows up and says her lines and it’s she is blameless in all this. Yeah. No, totally. But it just didn’t seem, it didn’t seem unnecessary. Like we don’t need to cut the camera. It’s Winston Churchill. We kind of know, you know.

All right. Well what’s your name. I’m saying eat. It’s really, really well made. I mean, Gary Oldman, what is like your front runner for best actor? Well, most for most actor, anyway. To me personally, you know, it’s a big country. Timothy Shillyshallying. Yeah.

Franco Well, Franco, strangely enough for two different then favorite. I don’t know from there. I don’t know yet because I haven’t there is a frontrunner in the people who make money off this will tell us who the fuck.

Oh that would be, that would be Gary Oldman for sure. But but yeah. Charlemagne or Franco. I’m much more into that.

And then I have a whole person I can’t even tell you about yet. There’s something I can we can’t talk about yet.

Oh, embargo. That’s true. I’ll talk to you about eventually. We will. And that is also up there for me. Yes. OK, we’ll get to that eventually. So I’m saying eight. OK, let’s say the person’s name. No, because that will say what movie it is and that’s an embargo bridge. Don’t say the movie. Well, I’m not saying it would be kind of obvious.

It’s Madea, OK, six. I was not blown away by this. It is technically made with a lot of precision. And, you know, look on a on a shear, like if awards didn’t matter, you know, woman is giving an interesting performance, but it’s like it’s that kind of performance where you just can you can weigh the makeup and the fat suit and the accent and the stuff. And it’s like, yes, well done. It’s not you. It’s good work. But, you know, I prefer something maybe leaner and meaner.

Ok, so I should point you to OK, so we’re at seven point one to eighty six percent on the tomato meter. It came out last week. It’s going elsewhere.

You’ll find it if you want to buy.