Review #1,309: 'Darkest Hour' (2017)

2017 saw cinema give us the complete Dunkirk experience: first with Christopher Nolan's ground-level, soldiers-eye view of one of the main turning points of World War II, and later with this, Joe Wright's Darkest Hour, told from the point-of-view of the stuffy politicians back at home shouting at each other in dark rooms. While over 300,000 brave men waited for evacuation as the German army closed in around them, Winston Churchill had just been sworn in as prime minister and was left with the unenvious task of dealing with Adolf Hitler, a man Churchill's predecessor Neville Chamberlain had been hoping to strike a peace deal with. As history tells it, Churchill knew the futility of trying to reason with a murderous tyrant and that the only outcome was war, but he had to rally his cabinet and deal with the Dunkirk situation at the same time.

Simply put, Darkest Hour is pure Oscar-bait. Ignoring the question of why yet another biopic of one of Britain's most iconic historic figures is needed in a year that had already seen the Brian Cox-starring Churchill, this is another shameless entry into the ongoing series of middlebrow British period dramas which also include fellow awards-favourites The Queen and The King's Speech. Sparing us the full biopic treatment, Darkest Hour starts in 1940 just as Churchill is chosen to lead the country in the wake of Chamberlain's ousting. Played by Gary Oldman in heavy prosthetics, the man who enjoys champagne with his breakfast and dictates his letters still dressed in his pyjamas charges into the situation like a bull in a china shop, out-shouting those who attempt to fast-track peace talks or undermine him. It's a good performance, and one that will almost definitely win Oldman an overdue Best Actor award. But it still feels like an impression, and despite some attempts to humanise the man with moments of self-doubt, we never break the tough, saggy surface.

Joe Wright has touched on the events of Dunkirk before with 2007's Atonement, a surprisingly moving and powerful love story that featured an impressive tracking shot along the battered beach. Atonement felt like it was created by a film-maker, while Darkest Hour feels like it was sculpted by a committee hoping to overcrowd their posters with lists of their awards nominations. It feels artificial to the point of patronising, with long shots of the smiling working class going about their business as Churchill cruises by trying to get a feel of the public's mood. This is later taken even further he ventures into the London underground on his own to chat with the common folk in a scene that is so out of place it feels like nails down a blackboard. Even worse are the brief moments of battle. CGI bombs are dropped and followed by the camera in a scene that harks back to Pearl Harbor. Impressive supporting turns by Ben Mendelsohn as King George IV and Ronald Pickip as a sympathetic, terminally-ill Chamberlain lighten the mood, while Kristen Scott Thomas, Lily James and Stephen Dillane do the most with what they are given as supportive wife, framing device and sneering villain, respectively. In these times of political uncertainty, Darkest Hour should have had me waving my fist with patriotic pride, but I could barely muster a twitch of the eyebrow.


Directed by: Joe Wright
Starring: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Mendelsohn, Lily James, Ronald Pickup, Stephen Dillane
Country: USA/UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,250: 'Baby Driver' (2017)

It feels like decades have passed since British writer/director Edgar Wright pulled away from Marvel's Ant-Man, apparently in fear of the studio's insistence on having the action take place within their Cinematic Universe and jeopardising his singular vision in the process. And it feels even longer since the underwhelming closure to the 'Cornetto Trilogy', 2013's The World's End, graced the big screen. But Wright has clearly been making the most of his spare time, finally completing the script for a movie that has been clattering around his head for over 20 years (he had the idea back in 1994). Drawing inspiration from a line in Simon & Garfunkel's song Baby Driver ("They call me baby driver, and once upon a pair of wheels," and a collection of his favourite petrol-head movies, he has delivered what is by far his most accomplished work to date.

Shortly before the release of Baby Driver, Wright hosted a film festival entitled 'Car Car Land' - a collection of his favourite car chase movies, featuring everything from William Friedkin's The French Connection to Walter Hill's The Driver. It has been quite rightly said that great cinematic action feels like a dance - elegant, brutal, and pieced together with delicate invention and skill. It is fitting that Wright named his festival after one of the finest musicals of recent times, La La Land. He has also taken this theory quite literally with Baby Driver, a movie as much at home with dazzling musical numbers as it is with high-speed pursuits and gun-fire, combining them beautifully without a hint of smugness. Our hero the getaway driver times his entire life to the beat ever-blasting into his ears from his loaded collection of iPods. A menial task such as making a sandwich becomes a toe-tapping dance number.

His name is Baby ("B-A-B-Y, Baby," as he confirms to practically everybody he meets), and his hipster blend of skinny jeans and sunglasses may have been grating without Ansel Elgort. Like Channing Tatum, his physicality and grace prevents you from taking your eyes off him once he starts to move, and cinematographer Bill Pope make sure to capture these moments in all their glory (including one terrific tracking shot at the start). Baby needs his music to block out the tinnitus constantly ringing in his ears, but also to remind him of the music-loving mother he lost in the very accident that caused his affliction. His short life has been spent in the debt of gangster Doc (Kevin Spacey), who employs the youngster's superhuman skills behind the wheel as a getaway driver for his ever-changing roster of low-life bank robbers. Each of them eye Baby with both curiosity and suspicion, when all he wants to do is pay off what he owes and leave town with adorable waitress Debora (Lily James). But one last job is never one last job.

Opening with a bank job that will leave you stunned at both the editing and choreography (no CGI is used), there's an early sense that Wight may have blown his load too early. But this only kicks off two hours in the hands of a craftsman who truly understand the mechanics of cinema. Not just action cinema, but musical and dramatic, and the film offers its fair share of belly laughs too. It's as much of an exaggerated world as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but contains itself in its own little world. The characters are larger-than-life but tangible, incredibly brought to life by the likes of Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, Eiza Gonzalez and Jon Bernthal. There's an almost ever-present soundtrack, with the characters speaking and moving in sync with the rhythm, which lend the film a unique energy. When the music stops and the soundtrack screeches to reflect Baby's tinnitus, we long to be thrown straight back into Wright's fantasy world. The car chases, the love story, the testosterone-fuelled exchanges - there's nothing new here, but Edgar Wright knows this. Baby Driver is so swaggeringly confident and stylishly hypnotic that it becomes a genre film like no other, causing most other action movies to hang their heads in shame.


Directed by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, Eiza González, Jon Bernthal
Country: UK/USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #966: 'Cinderella' (2015)

Kenneth Branagh's live-action re-telling of the famous Cinderella story does not attempt to offer any kind of fresh spin on one of Disney's most beloved movies. Where the likes of Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) and Maleficent (2014) played out well-worn fairytales from a different perspective, changing the entire outlook of the tale in the process, the 2015 version of Cinderella alters very little and adds even less. The real stars of the movie are the set and costume design which, with the exception of Cinders' rather drab ballgown, are sadly the only hint of magic on show here.

Ella (Downton Abbey's Lily James) lives happily in her peaceful kingdom with her loving mother (Hayley Atwell) and kind father (Ben Chaplin), who teach her of the existence of magic from a young age. After her mother takes ill, Ella is told to be courageous and kind with her final dying words. Years later, her father attempts to fill the void in his life by marrying the recently-widowed Lady Tremaine (Cate Blanchett), who brings her two deplorable daughters Drisella (Sophie McShera) and Anastasia (Holliday Grainger) to his home to live. When Ella's father also dies on a business trip, the Lady Tremaine reveals her dark side, dubbing the young girl Cinderella and forcing her to live in the attic while tending to their every need.

While the 1950 version can be forgiven for its rather old-fashioned patriarchal ideas of young girls fantasising about marrying rich and escaping the blandness of their existence, times have moved on and such an over-simplification of an entire gender in modern film-making really has no place. The moral message of showing kindness is of course eternally relevant, but James, aside from having a naturally sweet demeanour, injects very little personality into her character. The bulk of the first half is made up of trying to develop these themes, but without any songs to distract or cutesy animals to provide the chuckles, the narrative seems to move along with the urgency and excitement of an ITV Catherine Cookson adaptation.

It only really kicks into gear when the Fairy Godmother (Helena Bonham Carter) shows up to help Cinderella on her journey to the King's palace, where the Prince awaits every maiden in the land as he searches for a wife. Although the pumpkin transformation looks very nice, her other creations - including two unfunny lizards - are rather grotesque creations unworthy of a bippity-boppity-boo. Game of Thrones' Richard Madden plays the prince blandly but handsomely, while the long-awaited dance with his Princess-to-be lacks the magic of the cartoon version. Ironically, the Prince finds himself in the same situation as that of his most famous role, Robb Stark - promised to one but insistent on another - but there is sadly no bloody massacre at the end of it all to liven things up. Aesthetically lovely but ultimately soulless.


Directed by: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Lily James, Cate Blanchett, Richard Madden, Helena Bonham Carter, Nonso Anozie, Stellan Skarsgård, Sophie McShera, Holliday Grainger, Ben Chaplin
Country: USA/UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie