Churchill

'CHURCHILL' was directed by Jonathan Teplitzky and stars Brian Cox, Miranda Richardson and John Slattery. ?Fearful of repeating the invasion of Gallipoli in 1915, Winston Churchill attempts to stop the planned invasion of Normandy in 1944. Only the support of Churchill's wife, Clementine, can halt the prime minister's physical and mental collapse.

I desperately wanted to love this movie. I really did. This is a fascinating period of our history and would have loved to see a great depiction of Churchill's perception of it on our screens for the world to enjoy. Alas, I did not. It's a melodramatic mess that has Brian Cox's unfathomable acting ability keeping it barely alive. The only other positive I can conceive is the splendid speech at the end because the rest of the movie was messy, incoherent and, the worst sin of all, boring.

This movie's structure is were it falters greatly for me. While the plot and point are clear, it doesn't feel like one flowing narrative. The scenes feel messy and out of place(when they aren't) and it overall doesn't appear like much effort went into the creation of the story for this film.

I wouldn't usually do an entire section of a review on the direction but that is the main way this movie falters, at least for me. 90% of the scenes in this movie are shot, acted and scored in the fashion that makes it seem like the fate of the universe rests in these characters words and makes the whole movie stupidly melodramatic. This style works for brief moments in the film but fails overall. A much less dramatic, more relaxed style that still displayed Churchill's eccentric nature would have sufficed but instead they opted for a melodramatic mess,

Brian Cox was honestly great in this movie and I bought every second of his performance. I don't agree that he reaches Oscar levels but I do believe he gets quite close. Miranda Richardson and John Slattery both do fine as Clementine Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower respectively but neither of them come close to Cox's undeniable skill.

The costume and set design for this movie was really good and felt genuine to the era. The cinematography is a very strange subject. On the one hand, it is overly dramatic and feels very weird in scenes that don't require the world to be resting on them. On the other hand, there are a few scenes, like the masterfully written speech, where this format works stupidly well and is very, very effective. So I am pretty torn with this format of cinematography but I feel that it is pretty weak as a whole package.

As good as Cox and the speech are, this movie is probably not worth your time overall. I don't recommend you watch it and I'll rate it a measly 3 Glasses of Scotch out of 10.

This is a shambolic mess of a film with a one-sided view of Churchill, factual inaccuracies and appalling errors. The scriptwriter obviously did not read Field Marshal Alanbrooke's diaries or the many biographies of Churchill.

Even basic military details were so wrong, it is farcical. Couldn't the budget stretch to a military adviser? Monty addressing 20 or so soldiers? He went round addressing brigades, thousands of soldiers at a time.

The way that the characters addressed each other, the salutations, the lack of an equerry for the King, no PPS for Churchill...all utter rubbish.

I have often thought I would like to again experience watching films such as Aliens, The Thing, Saving Private Ryan or Blade Runner for the first time. All were exciting and entertaining. What am I served up with now? This tripe. Never mind factual issues, it is just plain boring. Churchill is, possibly, one of the worst films I have watched (well, I stopped after 50 minutes - my jaw was nearly dislocated with yawning). Dreadful. How was this ever released?

On the basis that other reviewers have very adequately covered the glaring objections to this film I will keep this brief.

In an action packed life of 80 years involving 2 world wars and one other significant war (The Boer War), a momentous political career, a life filled with both failure as well phenomenal achievements, that the filmmakers should think it necessary to MAKE UP a story about Churchill seems like the pinnacle of perversity. It just defies any logic hitherto known to mankind.

"Poetic license" is nothing new in movie making. However this movie is more like a "license to kill", kill a man's reputation, kill the concept of history, and kill the truth. The preservation of actual history in the light of revisionism is difficult enough without the general public being exposed to downright lies to further confuse and deceive them.

I give this movie a 1 as a protest, in the probably forlorn hope that if enough people do the same to all movies that mess around with history, movie makers will get the message and steer their movies in a way that treats people and history responsibly.

Never..in the field of cinematography..has so much crap been made to be watched by so many people. When the DVD comes out we will see it on the beaches...see it in the wheelie bins...etc I was dying to say that so there you go.

Good points are that if you knew nothing about Churchill, this could pass as a good " based on real events" matinée movie. All the cast do as much as they needed to pay their mortgages...sometimes beautifully filmed and neatly directed...if sometimes it wallowed in it's own importance.

Now the bad points..totally and absurdly historically inaccurate. Badly written and all through tries to build up to a crescendo but falls flat every time.You leave the theatre no wiser of what went on and who Churchill really was. As much as I admire Brian Cox ( I think his portrayal as Hannibal Lecter is almost as good as Tony Hopkins...and that's a MASSIVE compliment) I think he was miscast.

They had a chance to show us the mind of one of the few people who changed the world ...and I walked out of the theatre cold and short changed.

Watch it on a wet day but cannot give more than a 4!!