Film Review: Churchill, The Hollywood Years, 2004

Yep, that's no balkenkreuz... Nil points!

Having just posted two five star/balkenkreuz reviews, I thought it was time I posted something a bit more harshly critical, just to show I'm not someone who loves everything I see, without any critical faculties whatsoever. [1]

However, one thing I would like to say, before getting on to the meat and potatoes, is that I don't ever want to be drawn into personal attacks and mudslinging. The web is full of such stuff, and I detest such goings on. I may criticise someone's point of view, or their performance, or whatever. But by and large if someone has something out there to be criticised I admire that person for their achievement, even if what they've achieved is not to my tastes.

Anthony Sher as Hitler. A Jewish actor as der Führer? Hilarious! If only...

Anyway, to business: I'm extremely glad that I paid only £1 for this DVD. Even at that low price I feel robbed. I spent, or rather wasted, 84 minutes of my life watching this dreadful dross. At least it's relatively short. Thank heavens for small mercies. I should've followed my instincts: one look at the cover was enough to tell me this looked like rubbish. But I allowed the idea, suggested by the title, to fool me. 

The idea of rewriting Churchill's life and achievements in a spoof Hollywood style is a basically sound one. One does get tired of seeing the Yanks rewriting history with them winning everything singlehandedly. Not only did Bon Jovi help capture the first Enigma (U-571), but they also staged the first massed daylight bombing raids (The 1,000 Plane Raid) [2]. Apparently this film is intended as a riposte to such things. I didn't notice. Perhaps in part because one of the references was to Pearl Harbour, another truly dreadful film I've seen, but wish I hadn't.

Hollywood does a far better job of sending itself up, in the 'Nam themed spoof Tropic Thunder.

The trouble is, as much as such a film needs to be made (Team America is a similar but better executed idea, as is Tropic Thunder), the execution in this instance leaves a lot - pretty much everything - to be desired. The acting is bad, the script is bad. It has the production values of a budget made-for-TV affair, when it needs to look epic, even if (hopefully) epically comic [3]. But I didn't laugh at all during this film. Truth be told, it was so bland and nothingy I couldn't even summon the energy to groan. Although there was plenty to groan about.

A portion of the British cast might be referred to as 'comedy royalty' [4]. Whilst many of them have done stuff worth seeing, in other (largely very different) contexts, the result here is decidedly less than the sum of the parts. None of the characters have any depth or dimension of any kind, other than to be facile and irritating, and consequently I couldn't have cared less about any of them. Indeed, one kind of wished that they might all be hastily dispatched, in some amusing manner [5]. No such luck. 

Churchill and Eisenhower.

Maxim magazine is quoted as describing this film as 'comedy genius' [6]. Comedy genius!? Dr Strangelove is comedy genius. This rubbish makes Tropic Thunder, which is merely quite funny, look like comic genius. I can remember practically nothing about it, which I regard as a small mercy. I do recall one godawful sequence, when Churchill (Christian Slater) and Denzil Eisenhower (Romany  Malco) take to the stage and perform a lame-ass rap version of The Siegfried Line. [7]

In my Amazon UK review of this I said I would give this no stars if I could. It's rubbish. The idea is excellent. Sadly the execution is woeful. And on here I do have the freedom to give it no stars/balkankreuz. Do yourselves a favour, watch Soft Beds, Hard Battles, Tropic Thunder, or better still, Doctor Strangelove, but don't waste your time (like I did!) on this tepid gutless bilge.

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NOTES:

I haven't seen this yet, but it does look both sillier, and therefore probably funnier, Jackboots On Whitehall:

[1] Anyone who knows me personally knows that I can be a deeply critical, indeed, a downright ornery son of a gun. But that's amongst friends and family. In 'public life', even in the backwaters of small scale military blog land, one should be polite.

[2]  We should of course let them have the credit for these raids, as they were directed against civilian targets. Although in the Hollywood/American version what's bombed is a Luftwaffe factory.

[3] It was made in about twenty days, and you can tell.

[4] I'm pretty strongly anti-royalty, and agree with Thomas Paine: 'monarchy in every instance is the popery of government.' And I find it an inappropriate form of praise for anyone who's actually done anything commendable, as opposed to being born into a position of privileged eminence.

[5] Somethihg like the pills producing fatal flatulence that feature in Soft Beds, Hard Battles would've been about right.

[6] Mind you, Maxim has never been my first port of call for acutely insightful film reviews. And, to be fair, the full quote might've actually run thus: 'this film's utter crap, what they needed was some sort of comedy genius to rescue it'. 

[7] You can imagine the scene in a West London pub: 'We need a prominent black character... Denzil Washington? I know, let's get someone much cheaper, and they can be Denzil Eisenhower!' As to the attempt at an asynchronous musical schtick, it's funny when Marty McFly starts shredding at the 1950s College hop. But here, like everything about the film, it just doesn't work.

Film Review - Love & Death, Woody Allen (1975)

For me this film is a dream come true: I love Napoleonic history, and I'm especially fascinated with the 1812 campaign in Russia. And of course Russian literature and music offers vast riches for Woody Allen to both mock and do homage to. Then there's Allen himself - my favourite film maker - indulging in a rather silly take on all this stuff.

Released in '75, Love & Death marks the end of his run of early 'funny' films, after which he enters upon the decade that I see as the apex of his career, between Annie Hall and Radio Days. Love and Death certainly isn't his greatest film. Indeed, it's fairly dumb in places, as Allen movies go. But,  nevertheless, it's wonderful: there's no one else makes films quite like Woody Allen.

The Russian soldier, brave and resolute, faces death without fear.

The many faces - and fab outfits - of Boris Grushenko, 'scholar and coward'.

Despite the weighting towards farcical broad comedy, which often approaches slapstick, there are poignant moments, such as the opening and closing titles, where the pure beauty of landscape and music, despite Allen prancing about with the figure of death at one point, are quite intoxicating. Allen uses Prokofiev throughout, which helps with the Russian flavour, and the 'Troika' section from the Lieutenant Kijé Suite, used in the titles, is utterly perfect. 

Allen and Diane Keaton are brilliant, deadpanning a very Noo Yoik type convoluted love-affair into a cod-Tolstoyesque (or sometimes even cod-Dostoyevskyan) setting. There are some fabulous exchanges between Keaton's philosophical Sonja and Allen's wise-cracking Boris. And the supporting cast do fine as well, Keaton's first (herring merchant) husband, her unctuous piano-teacher - the first of her many lovers - and James Tolkan as Napoleon, are all noteworthy. Numerous other actors give brief but entertaining performances, such as the guy who portrays one of Napoleon's forgotten staff, Sidney Applebaum.

James Tolkan very much looks the part (every inch, perhaps?), as Napoleon.

As ever with Allen there's plenty of reference to such themes as existential angst and sex, which are, of course, facets of the titles themes, love and death. His encounter with and seduction of the stunning cocquette Countess Alexandrovna is very amusing. Inevitably, it being Russia in the C19th, he then has to fight a duel with Countess Alexandrovna's cuckolded lover Anton. Needless to say, the resulting duel in the snow is rather different to that between Bezukhov and Dolokhov in the many film and TV adaptations of War and Peace.

Countess Alexandrovna: 'You're the greatest lover I've ever had' 

Boris: 'Well, I practice a lot when I'm alone.'

Eventually, having become embroiled in the wars - first when Napoleon goes to war with Austria, and later when he invades Russia - very much against his will (he's a self-professed 'scholar and coward'), he finally gets together with Sonja, much against hers, only to be dragged into a plot she hatches to kill Boney. But in case you haven't seen it, I'll leave it there. 

Boris struggles with the deep moral implications of murder, and his pistol.

But, ah me... as I said above, there's no-one else makes films like Allen! So, whilst not his best, it's still a four-and-a-half bicorne affair, especially compared with the vast and seemingly endless tidal-waves of brainless, humourless dross Hollywood pumps out these days. As silly as this undoubtedly often gets, it's still packed with not just wit, but intelligence, pathos, and even reflections, albeit largely tongue in cheek, on the kind of deeper themes that Tolstoy et al loved to ruminate on.

'You luuu-rve Russia, don't you!?'

Oops, Boris chooses the wrong place to hide!

Projectile Woody. Who'd Dare accuse Allen of being a dummy? [1]

I don't recall this scene, perhaps it was cut?

Russian soldier: 'God is testing us'.

Boris: 'Couldn't he have given us a written?'

In terms of military scenes and action, whilst there's a fair bit of it, and on quite a grand scale, it's all pretty silly, from the deliberate anachronism of the bawling black U.S. Marine style drill-master, to Woody's malfunctioning weapons, and his ill-advised choice of the barrel of a cannon as a place to hide. Nevertheless, and rather like Harry Flashman, despite his own best efforts to shirk, cower and hide, Boris becomes a hero.

The first and only major military campaign depicted on film here is, as in War and Peace, the 1805 campaign, which culminatesd in Austerlitz. In this film, Allen doesn't - as mainstream American directors would undoubtedly do - signpost such references (and the film is littered with cultural cross defences), they're there for the knowing to spot and enjoy.

The second military phase is of course the 1812 invasion, but again history, military and civil, just serves as a vehicle for Allen's comedic take an everything from sex and art, to angst and philosophy. This is the segment in which Boris is not a soldier, but a would-be assassin. So it's not so much battles, as intrigue, Boris and Sonja inveigling their way into the Imperial HQ.

In a film like Bondarchuk's Waterloo, one might lament any license with history. Here, however, we are clearly dealing with a film in which historical accuracy was not paramount. Nevertheless, the uniforms and settings are, for the most part, pretty good - and certainly sumptuous and quite spectaular - but mostly it's just great fun to see a favourite era used for comedic mileage.

It looks like making the film was fun, but...

... Woody explains to readers of Esquire why making films like Love And Death isn't fun.

A nice publicity still.

A great very retro image, used in some versions of the post series for the film.

On set in Hungary. An experience which put Allen off filming abroad for about 20 years!