Review of Darkest Hour (2017) by Lance L — 25 Dec 2017

Not a great picture, but worth seeing. Gary Oldman is an excellent Churchill, surely worth of Oscar consideration even though the picture isn't. Overall, one would have to say Darkest Hour is very dark, rather slow, and generally boring. After all, we all know the outcome even though the director has to inform us of it at the end. What is there new to be said about Churchill or Britain's standing up to Hitler in World.

War II? Nothing in this picture offers new insight into a subject that has been covered a million times. And the whole thing is now long behind us, as the youngest World War II living veterans turn 90. Hitler and the Nazis are kept alive in Hogan's Heroes reruns, but Mussolini, Halifax, Chamberlain, Attlee, and other famous people of the time have long since disappeared into history. What viewer will understand a reference to Gallipoli or a demand for the works of Cicero? The added character of a new secretary who somehow has great questions to ask is colorless, and the totally specious episode in the subway (Churchill, like Roosevelt, had no common touch at all, never having had to be common!) is silly. And in the end, virtue wins and the bad guys either die or end up on duty in Washington, whichever is worse. In actuality, Halifax's points were well-taken. The likely invasion would have cost millions of lives and left England devastated. Why not sue for peace? The problem was that making peace with Germany was hopeless, since Hitler's word wasn't good and an agreement could not be enforced. But the alternatives are not clearly explored in this rather puerile film.