Review of Darkest Hour (2017) by Shpostal — 30 Dec 2017

I had my reservations about seeing this movie, but since Gary Oldman was playing the part of Churchill, I figured it was worth a shot. First, I am not a fan of Churchill. For those of us who know a little WWI history, the man was responsible for the inexcusable needless slaughter of 25000 or more British sailors and soldiers in the invasion of the strip of dirt called Gallipoli that jutted out into the Dardanelle straits, leaving them to horrific fates by the Ottomans, who easily defended the strait.

Churchill belligerently refused to withdrawal until it was already marked as one of the most pointless and brutal massacres in WWI history. He would never admit wrongdoing for this event, and in my view should never have been a politician ever again.

But "Darkest Hour" is historically quite accurate, and I was pleased to see the disaster of Gallipoli was not ignored. Nor was his heavy drinking. However, with Hitler's imminent takeover of France and the east side of the channel, and a state of war already declared, for this brief period Churchill did act appropriately.

Neville Chamberlain was pathetic. He had flown to Berlin at Hitler's behest to end up allowing the dictator to take Austria and the Czech Republic free and clear in exchange for a "pact" that he naively thought would bring the U.

K. "peace in our time". Even when Hitler violated the agreement by invading Poland and resulted in touching off the European theater of WWII, (Japan well on her way in Manchuria since 1937), Chamberlain and fellow coward Viscount Halifax would sue for a wilting borderline treasonous "deal" with the Germans, even after having been royally suckered.

Pacifism is one thing - when the mightiest army of the history of the world up to that time was on the verge of attempting the complete annihilation of your nation, however, to be so cowardly was indeed a war crime in itself.

Churchill refused to kowtow to this effort by Chamberlain and Halifax, and it was his steadfastness and determination along with the support of the British population that would ultimately persevere, draining the Luftwaffe dry and forcing Hitler to abandon plans for a full scale invasion.

Oldman is terrific, as are the supporting cast. There is almost no real war action but the tension in the month before the Battle of Britain was to commence is palpable. Great care was taken to present as accurately as possible the historic events, and as a person who loves history but is sick to death of the immediate spin and **** that accompanies every aspect of our lifetimes, I appreciated the attempts to exclude any one "favorable" propaganda spin over another.

It's a gripping tale, and well worth the time.