NOW SHOWING: Darkest Hour (2017)

                Well, I finally got around to seeing the new Winston Churchill movie.  You may have heard of it – “Darkest Hour”.  It is garnering a lot of awards buzz and has already pocketed the Best Actor Golden Globe.  The movie covers the first few weeks of Churchill’s first tenure as Prime Minister.  The title alludes to the fact that those weeks coincided with the lowest moment in the war for Great Britain.  The Norway debacle was underway and France was being pummeled by the Wehrmacht.  Dunkirk takes place during the movie’s time frame.  It is directed by Joe Wright (“Atonement”) and written by Anthony McCarten (Oscar nominee for “The Theory of Everything”).  Gary Oldman stars as Churchill.  He spent over 200 hours in makeup.  He smoked over 400 cigars during the filming at a cost of over $20,000.  He was the sixth actor from the Harry Potter movies to portray Churchill.

                The movie opens with newsreel scenes to set the time as May, 1940 with the Nazis on the rampage.  Parliament is looking for a replacement for the appeaser Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup).  In a raucous Commons, a Labour Party Member makes a fiery speech demanding that Chamberlain step down.  Cries of “Go! Go! Resign! Resign!” cascading upon Churchill’s empty seat.  Chamberlain reads the mood and wants Lord Halifax (Stephen Dillane) to replace him.  The only other choice is Winston.  Egads!  When Halifax declines,  King George VI (Ben Mendelsohn) summons Churchill to an awkward meeting at the Palace.  Not a fan. We are introduced to Churchill’s new secretary, a comely mousey Elizabeth Layton (Lily James) and we empathize with her as she deals with the irascible Winny through the stress-laden next few weeks.  While the soldiers are facing the stress of the Nazi juggernaut, Churchill is having to deal with cabinet dysfunction.  Chamberlain and Halifax are plotting his demise based on his refusal to negotiate a peace deal with the unbeatable foe.  Will Winny cave to the pacifists?  Go see the movie or go back to school to find out.

                 For those hoping for a companion to the recent “Dunkirk”, “Darkest Hour” does not really fill in the macro elements.  As I mentioned, it concentrates mostly on whether Churchill should negotiate peace.  This makes it more of a political thriller than a war movie.  It is also something of a biopic, even though it covers only a few weeks in Churchill’s life.  We do get a vivid picture of his personality and political talents.   All the famous quirks are here:  the love of whiskey and cigars, the dictating while in the bathtub, the late-night work sessions, etc.  Inclusion of the Layton character (the stereotypical war correspondent equivalent from war movies) is effective in depicting his speech writing style.  She also acts as the foil for his curmudgeonry.  Her first day on the job, he calls her a “nincompoop”.  Clementine (Kristin Scott Thomas) takes us backstage to see the private “Winny” and we witness his mood swings.  The movie jumps around from the private quarters to the political settings which are filmed in a “West Wing” corridor-maneuvering style.  The highlights are the speeches, of course.  In a nod to current attention spans, they are edited to their rousing parts.  The “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” speech is niftily intercut with its composition. 

                The reason to see the movie is Oldman’s performance.  He is magnificent and will win a well-deserved Oscar come May.  However, let’s not go overboard on the accolades.  Churchill is an actor-proof character.  Can you name an actor who blew the role?   He may be the best yet, but the others were pretty darn good, too.  The supporting cast is fine and Thomas has gotten some Oscar buzz.  Pickup and Dillane do a good job sliming the reputations of Chamberlain and Halifax.  Movies need villains, right?  Mendelsohn does not attempt to out-stutter Colin Firth.  Lily James is something of a weak-link in a stock role, but you have to credit her agent with putting her in this film and “Baby Driver” in the same year. 

                Wright does a nice job directing.  The cinematography has some showiness to it.  He is fond of aerial views to literally give the big picture.  It sometimes comes off as the only time he wants to depict the war is from a plane.  In fact, the movie does not intercut to the boys on the beach.  We do witness a political battle and spend a lot of time following Churchill through the corridors of power.  Speaking of which, someone needed to tell the person in charge of lighting that in the case of the title “darkest” is not literal.  This is one dark movie, and I mean that literally.  The dialogue is what you would expect, especially when Churchill is talking.  He gets the bon mots, which is appropriate, but Clemmy gets to be charmingly snarky.  The music is of the Masterpiece Theater variety.

                The weakness is in the plot.  The decision to concentrate on the peace negotiation issue is a curious one.  It does allow for a standard biopic plot where the protagonist goes through an arc of uncertainty, but for Churchill fans it leaves you wondering about the veracity of his vacillating.  He goes from apparently being the only one against peace talks to almost becoming a hippie.  It just doesn’t ring true.  The machinations of Chamberlain and Halifax seem Snidely Whiplashish. I left the theater scratching my head about its accuracy.  See below to find out if I had reason for concern.

                “Darkest Hour” is a must-see for history buffs.  If you have never seen a Churchill movie (and shame on you if you haven’t), you’ll get the gist of why he was special.  Oldman’s performance alone makes it a must-see.  In this it reminds of “Lincoln”, but the latter picture is superior.  Not because Day-Lewis did a better acting job, but the plot was more interesting.  Lincoln had better enemies.

GRADE  =  B

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  The movie opens on May 8, 1940.  Parliament is in an uproar over the Norway debacle.  The movie does not make that clear, possibly because Churchill was a major cause of that debacle.  It was basically his baby, but ironically he did not have to shoulder much of the blame.  The blowback squarely targeted Chamberlain, as depicted in the opening speech by an opponent.  The movie makes a point of Churchill being conspicuously absent, but in reality he was there to support Chamberlain and tried to take responsibility for Norway.  Chamberlain and the King did prefer Halifax and he did decline for reasons not really explored in the movie.  It certainly implies his motives were shady, which is a shame because some historians argue it was an act of statesmanship.  Apparently, he felt it was not the right moment for him and he modestly felt that being from the House of Lords would make it uncomfortable for the Commons to have him in charge.  He and Chamberlain did push the idea of opening a peace channel through Mussolini, but I could find no evidence that they were trying to bring down Churchill if he refused to toe their line.  The movie has them absurdly trying to set up Churchill.  The King did not want Churchill and the movie does mention his anger over Churchill siding with Edward VIII in the Abdication Crisis.  Their first meeting was awkward.

                 The idea that Churchill wavered on the peace issue is only loosely based on reality.  He did toy with Halifax’s suggestion of sending a message to Mussolini, but he did not go very far down that path.  There was no tipping point moment where he listened to the people in the Underground (note the movie’s inclusion of every demographic in that scene).  The subway scene is pure artistic license and a trite moment in an otherwise serious movie.  The only time Churchill was ever on a subway train was during the general strike of 1926.  The bigger problem with the scene is I am sure the screenwriter would argue that it reflected the mood of the people.  In reality, a typical subway group at that time would have been divided over what to do.  They would not have been unanimously and enthusiastically in favor of never surrendering.  The follow-up scene where Churchill addresses the Outer Cabinet is more accurate, although it accepts Churchill’s memory of vocal support from his peers.  That scene actually resulted not from mingling with the common people, but from an exchange with Halifax in which his insistence on negotiation got Churchill’s back up and this mood followed him into the meeting.  Enough was enough.  No more dilly-dallying.  There was no moment where Churchill switched from considering peace to no surrender.

                 As far as the Dunkirk references, the movie is shaky here as well.  It implies that Churchill defied the generals in implementing Operation Dynamo.  In fact, Churchill was unrealistically aggressive-minded as the crisis developed. The movie does not do a good job of showing how Churchill was brimming with ideas, but most of them were ridiculous.  He did not order the Calais garrison to make a suicidal counterattack to buy time for the evacuation.  In reality, he ordered the garrison to hold out where it was to buy time (which it really didn’t).  His lack of strategic awareness was exemplified by his wanting Gen. Gort to counterattack instead of retreating to the port.  It was Gort’s own initiative that saved the army in the early stages.  Once the siege began, Churchill deserves credit for lighting a fire under the navy to evacuate the army.  He is correctly given credit for encouraging the use of the little ships, but I do not know if he can be credited with the idea itself.  No matter the quibbles, no one better earned the right to give the “we will fight on the beaches” speech.

                The movie gets some minor details wrong.  Layton did not actually come to work for him until a month later, but that is excusable.  Churchill vetoed any talk of the royal family escaping to Canada.  There was no direct phone hookup to the White House at that time.   The conversation between the two heads of state is a composite of discussions.  Strangely, the movie gives the vibe that FDR’s proposal of using horses to pull the fighters over the Canadian border was a silly one when in reality it was a sneaky way to get around Congress and it was implemented.  The movie is bad about implying that FDR did not do enough to help Churchill in his hour of need.  It also implies that FDR turned down the opportunity to give England some destroyers.  The destroyers for bases deal may have come months later, but FDR arranged it as soon as he could.

THE BEST DUNKIRK MOVIE: Dunkirk (1958)

I promise I will get to the second round of the Submarine Movie Tournament soon, but I just felt I needed to post this now since it is topical.

                As some are aware, based on my recent review, I was not impressed with Christopher Nolan’s new “Dunkirk”.  I had waited for months for the movie’s release and although skeptical at first, I gradually bought into the buzz and expected to like it.  It was a huge disappointment.  I found myself in the distinct minority of viewers who were not impressed by it.  The movie has gotten rave reviews from most and made a ton of money.  There are critics who feel the movie is one of the best of this year. Some have talked of Academy Award nominations.  At least one reviewer has called it the best war movie ever made.  If I had not been doing war movie reviewing for the last seven years, I might have questioned my sanity.  However, I am comfortable in my assessment, partly because I have seen a better movie about Dunkirk.

                Before going to see Nolan’s movie, I reacquainted myself with the 1958 version directed by Leslie Norman (“The Long and the Short and the Tall”).  I had not seen it since the early months of my blog.  The film was #89 on Military History magazines “100 Greatest War Movies” list.  Although I read two histories of Dunkirk in preparation for seeing Nolan’s movie, rewatching the 1958 movie also helped with refreshing my memory of what happened in Operation Dynamo.  Little did I know that this classic black and white movie would contribute to my disappointment when I left the IMAX.

                “Dunkirk” covers the period from May 26 – June 4, 1940.  It opens as though you are in a London theater watching a newsreel chronicling the “Phoney War” situation.  One theme that is established is that the British public was in denial about the German threat.  The movie juxtapositions footage of the Nazi war machine (accompanied by martial music) with shots of smiling British soldiers (to the tune of harmonica music).  If that is too subtle for you, two British vaudevillians (Flanagan and Allen playing themselves) sing “We’re Going to Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line” intercut with an animated map showing the German invasion of France.

                The movie has two storylines – civilian and military.  The civilian perspective is portrayed by Charles Foreman (Bernard Lee) and John Holden (Richard Attenborough).  Foreman is a journalist who represents those voices in the wilderness that tried to warn the public of the dangers of unpreparedness.  Holden is a small business owner who is benefitting from war contracts, but is confident the war will not affect anything but his bottom line.  The military component is a small section (the British equivalent of an American squad) that are on the run after being separated from their unit.  Led by Corporal Binns (John Mills), they eventually make their way into the Dunkirk perimeter.  This “lost patrol” witnesses refugees being strafed and moves on to find succor from an artillery battery.  When they leave, they see the effect of Stukas on a last ditch stand.

                While Binns and his comrades are avoiding the Germans and working their way to Dunkirk, Operation Dynamo is put into action.  A call for “small boats” to aid in the evacuation nets the patriotic Foreman and the peer-pressured Holden.  Holden is reluctant to go, not just because he feels his buckle business is crucial to the war effort (and his boat is six inches too short), but because he has a wife who insists his place is at home with her and their new baby.  She’s never seen a war movie, so she expects him to choose her over his bros.  It’s a small war (and a shrinking perimeter) so these two storylines are bound to intersect on the beach of Dunkirk.

                Each of the storylines features a character arc.  Holden evolves from a milquetoast collaborator-in-waiting to a heroic yachtsman.  Binns is your cinematic soldier who has leadership thrust upon him.  Already chafing at wearing the stripes of a corporal, Binns is reluctant to shoulder the leadership of his small band.  He will be forced to go from being one of the grumblers to being of the brass. Both arcs are simplistic and predictable, but necessary for the picture’s goals.  The goals included reminding a Cold War audience of the dangers of underestimating an enemy and the need for teamwork in the face of an existential threat.  A reference to 1930s Britain choosing butter over guns is an obvious plea to 1950s Britain to not make the same mistake.  These goals will naturally be reached with the signature British traits of stoicism and stiff upper lips.  Traits required in 1950s British war films.

                Unlike Nolan’s film, Norman foregoes the RAF component and limits himself to the small boats and the small unit.  (He does manage to thrown in the canard that the RAF did little to defend the beach and mole.)  However, he does include tastes of the bigger picture.  There are scenes where the camera pulls back to show the decision makers.  For instance, we see Gen. Gort making the decision to evacuate in spite of French wishes.  Adm. Ramsey demands the Royal Navy rescind its orders pulling most of the destroyers out. (A scene filmed in the actual command bunker in Dover.)

                The movie is well made.  It makes use of the British war movie repertory cast.  Mills is solid in an unchallenging role.  Foreman and Attenborough are adept at playing the two strains of British civilians.  Holden’s transformation is a bit pat and were the movie to be remade, he would stay a villain.  But this was the 1950s, not the 1960s.  No one else is given much of a chance to shine.  Binns’ section is pretty generic, but Robert Urquhart is fine as Binns’ nagging mate.  You have the stripes – lead!  The cinematography stands out.  The interior scenes feature a lot of deep focus.  The exterior scenes blend in actual footage, not quite seamlessly, but well enough to prevent any wish that CGI would have been available.  The best effects are in the area of sound.  There is a lot of realistic aerial and artillery bombardment and the noise that goes with them.  This is especially true of the harassment of the beach.  The extras do a good job reacting to death from above.

                While the plot does not break any new ground and the movie has a stodgy agenda, it does avoid overt patriotism and propaganda.  Most importantly, it is strong historically.  It makes an excellent companion to Nolan’s picture.  It is best to see it first.  Where Nolan made the decision to concentrate on personal storylines exclusively, screenwriter David Divine gives both a micro and macro view.  His personal stories may not have the visceral impact of Nolan’s, but he has a better balance in telling the story of Operation Dynamo. (It is noteworthy that the name of the operation is not mention in Nolan’s film.)  On the other hand, Norman’s film could easily have been named “Operation Dynamo”.  Where you can glean the basics of Dunkirk from Nolan, Norman is more tutorial.  Binns’ men represent the “odds and sods” who were cut off from their units in the chaos of the German penetration of the Ardennes Forest.  The artillery battery stands in for all the units who made suicidal stands to buy time.  Binns and the others first attempt to escape via the mole, but end up on the beach relying on a small boat to pick them up.  Foreman and Holden exemplify all of the small boat captains that risked their lives to cross the Channel.  Their actions were typical.  The movie also throws in some anecdotal morsels like the leaflets encouraging the British to give up and the medical personnel drawing lots to see who would stay with the wounded.  Divine can be criticized for omitting any references to the French, but I have no real problem with that.  If the French wanted to be lionized, they should have been more supportive of the operation.  (I am aware they did the lion’s share of defending the perimeter towards the end, but to me that was more along the lines of surrendering with a fight than an act of sacrifice for an ally.)

                “Dunkirk” is not a great movie.  It is too inside the box to achieve that accolade.  It is, however, a classic that holds up well and deserves the renewed interest that should come its way.  (You can see it on You Tube for $1.99.)  I do not normally prefer older movies over modern war films.  The classics were constrained by technology and censorship which made realism a bigger challenge than with modern efforts.   While “Dunkirk” falls into the Old School, it manages to not be obsolete because it is historically sound and still tells an entertaining story well.  It’s this fidelity to history that gives it its main edge over Nolan’s film. 

GRADE  =  B+  

NOW SHOWING: Dunkirk (2017)

                WARNING:  The following review was written by a war movie lover for war movie lovers.  General public, proceed at your own risk.

                War movies come along rarely these days.  Good war movies are even rarer.  Ever since hearing about the upcoming “Dunkirk”, directed by none other than Christopher Nolan, I had circled the date on my calendar and eagerly awaited it.  I became more eager as the trailers came out and the buzz ginned up.  I had every reason to expect it to be an amazing movie.  I waited to see it in an IMAX, as it was meant to be seen.  I do not remember when I was more disappointed by a war movie.  Perhaps “Gods and Generals”.

                The historical event simply known as Dunkirk seems ripe for screen treatment.  The bad guys win, but the good guys survive daunting odds in a miraculous evacuation aided by plucky civilians. Sacrifices abound.   Throw in historical controversy.  And it had something for every military nut – air battles, ground combat, and naval activities.  In 1958, the movie “Dunkirk” tried to tell the story by concentrating on a squad and two civilian boaters and including the bigger picture.  Chris Nolan decided it was high time to revisit the event.  But he decided to throw out the big picture ("Operation Dynamo" is not mentioned in the movie) and add the air leg of the tripod.  His movie would be more personal and immerse you in the experience.  It should have been a great companion to the original.  Somehow he misfired, as far as I am concerned.

                Being a modern director, Nolan could not just use a traditional narrative approach.  The movie is like a triptych consisting of a land, sea, and air component.  The three story arcs are interweaved in a nonlinear structure.  The movie drops us straight outside the Dunkirk perimeter with a vague title card that reminds historically literate viewers what the situation was in 1940 – Germany was kicking British and French butt.  Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) is in a group of “odds and sods” (a term for soldiers cut off from their units) that are making their way to the Dunkirk perimeter.  For those of you, like me, who think that Nolan has adopted the “lost patrol, who will survive?” structure from the 1958 movie, think again.   Tommy’s crew are not going to be whittled down slowly.  Tommy, who is one of the “heroes” of the movie, pals up with a supposed Brit named Gibson (Aneurin Barnard) and they try to cut the line to get on a ship leaving the mole.  The mole is a pier supervised by Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) where ships pull up alongside and load up with soldiers.  Keep in mind, Tommy has just arrived and these other guys have been waiting hours (days?) in orderly fashion to be saved.  I have to admit my view of Tommy was colored by my view of every line cutter I have encountered.  From this point on, I did not really care if Tommy lived.  I did feel sorry to any shipmates of his, however.  Because every ship Tommy got on was doomed to be sunk.  This is not a “who will survive?” movie, it is a “what will survive?” movie.  Answer: one little boat.

                The second panel of the triptych is Mr. Gibson (Mark Rylance) in his yacht coming across the Channel to help pick up soldiers.  On the way, he rescues a shipwrecked soldier (Gillian Murphy) who is less than thrilled with the prospect of returning to Dunkirk.  He is on board to provide dramatic tension.  Have you ever been on an hours long yacht ride?  Have you watched one?  The voyage will be intertwined with the third story line - that of an RAF pilot named Farrier (Tom Hardy).  Farrier will provide the dogfight portion of the film.  The air combat is shown out of sequence so Nolan can earn his auteur merit badge.

                The effort put into “Dunkirk” is commendable.  Nolan, who made his fame in action films like “The Dark Knight”, decided to avoid directorial stereotyping.  He eschewed CGI in favor of “practical effects”.  Sixty authentic ships and boats were used, including twelve of the original “Little Ships”.  Three Spitfires were available and a Yak-25TW was rigged to look like a Spitfire.  The Yak is a two-seater that allowed for shots over Hardy’s shoulder and for an actual pilot to fly the plane.  The one Me-109 was portrayed by a Spanish HA-1112 Buchon.   The thousands of extras were supplemented by cardboard cut-outs of soldiers and vehicles.  Unfortunately, it is sometimes hard to tell the real actors from the cardboards.  The cast is eclectic.  It has some heavyweights like Branagh, Hardy, and Rylance, but the rest are future star wannabes.  The biggest buzz brewed up around pop heartthrob Harry Styles as one of Tommy’s sink-baits.  Nolan was not familiar with his fame when he was cast, that makes two of us.  Hardy spends the whole movie with his face covered.  In other words, it’s a Tom Hardy movie.  He doesn’t get to say much, which is better than mouthing platitudes like Branagh.  “I’d rather fight waves than dive bombers.”  That’s pretty much a speech for this movie.  The dialogue is sparse.  Nolan lets the scenarios do the talking.  The interweaving of the stories is intriguing and you definitely are encouraged to pay attention.  (Someone should do a study on the average amount of time it takes a viewer to realize the movie is nonlinear.)  I can imagine there are some baby boomers who will be a little confused by the plot.  Which plane is Farrier shooting down now?  The movie can be mesmerizing in its cinematography.  Nolan shot it in 70 mm and on an IMAX screen the details are amazing.  The air action is especially noteworthy (although the dogfights are not the best ever), but the movie also has some visceral sinking scenes.  Those of you who want to see Harry Styles drown will enjoy this film.

                So, what’s not to like?  Not much, if you are a regular movie fan.  Lots, if you are a war movie buff.  I am aware that Nolan was making a fictional tale.  He purposely did not have any real characters in the film.  But he also stated that he would take a documentary approach to the story.  He interviewed numerous veterans of Dunkirk.  (Most complimented the film, but commented that it was too noisy.  And kids should stay off their lawns.)  Their personal stories are reflected in the experiences of the characters in the movie.  For instance, at one point a soldier wades into the surf to fatalistically swim back to England.  I have no problem with a movie about a famous historical event that downplays tutoring in favor of entertainment.  But I do take umbrage when the  movie confuses the facts and blows the opportunity to use an historical setting to tell a rousing tale.  The best way to describe “Dunkirk” is to say that Nolan has set his tale in Dunkirk and seasoned it with some references to the actual event, but he cared little about bringing the battle to life.  His decision to leave the bigger picture out forfeited a lot of the suspense inherent in the event.  You wonder what will happen to Tommy and the others, but you do not feel for the army and the nation.  The movie is only 107 minutes long so it’s not like Nolan decided to leave Churchill and the brass on the cutting room floor because of time constraints.  A historical epic that is less than two hours?  Hell, “Dunkirk” (1958) is 134 minutes!  Speaking of which, you may be shocked to learn that the old movie is better than the new.  It was able to show the micro and the macro.  Binn (John Mills) made a much more interesting central character than Tommy.  And it has a much more interesting take on the civilian rescuers.  It has no RAF, but it does cover the other two branches better. As far as a history lesson, there is no comparison.  If you want to learn what happened at Dunkirk and you don’t care who Harry Styles is, the 1958 movie is the better bet.

                “Dunkirk” is a classic example of how low a bar historical movies have these days.  It is being commended for its accuracy and it is above average.  However, there are still moments that should make history buffs cringe.  (Especially if you have read two books about the event recently.)  The decision to forego special effects deprives the movie of the chaos and destruction that it needs to reflect the desperate nature of the trap the British were in.  Shots of Dunkirk (where the location shooting occurred) do not show the results of the relentless Luftwaffe bombing.  The use of the mole is sanitized and simplified.  Events there are supposed to take place over a seven day period, but they appear to be close to the end of the evacuation.  This causes some problems.  Barton mentions the seemingly unattainable goal of rescuing 30,000 men when in reality they would have been well past that figure.  He also laments the withdrawal of destroyers from the effort when at this point that decision had been reversed.  The French soldiers are evacuated after all the British were gone, when in actuality they were being jointly evacuated midway through.  At this stage, the evacuation during the daytime would have been suspended in favor of night only.  As far as the beach scenes, there should have been more men waiting on the beach.  And a lot more debris.  And there should have been more action by the little boats to pick them up and deliver them to off shore ships.  Through the Gibson character, the movie implies the little boats brought the men back to England with them.  Some did - on their last trip of the day.  The movie makes it seem that the little boats were sent in only at the end to finish the job.  The cavalry riding to the rescue.  They were actually involved much earlier.  Gibson would not have made only one trip.  And he would not have snuck away to avoid having his boat commandeered by the Royal Navy.  If a boat owner wanted to sail the boat himself, he could.   But the biggest flaws are in the showy dog fights.  The three-plane formation that Farrier is in is tactically sound, but they would not have approached the port at a low altitude.  If they were bounced by a German fighter, he would have had to have brass balls to tangle with the three of them.  Normally, I would not lament the lack of CGI, but in this case it could have been used effectively.   As far as Farrier shooting down a Stuka while gliding…  By the way, that was his fourth kill of the sortie!

                Some critics have gone as far as calling “Dunkirk” a great war movie.  One even called it the greatest.  Having seen a fair amount of war movies, I can tell you it is very overrated.  I do not even think it is in the top 100.  I’m not saying it is a bad movie, I’m saying it does not live up to the hype and is not even as good as the 1958 version.  It was a missed opportunity.

GRADE  =  C