Into the storm - La guerra di Churchill

A biographical film about Winston Churchill during World War II, it was a follow up to The Gathering Storm which was made seven years earlier and covered the years just prior to the war.

The film is told largely in flashbacks while Churchill and his family are holidaying in France at the conclusion of the war as they wait for the results of the election.

Brendan Gleeson who replaces Albert Finney from the previous film, gives a very good performance as Churchill who has to be one of the most often portrayed historical figures. Gleeson would pick up an Emmy which duplicated what Finney also achieved. Since then we have also seen John Lithgow pick up an Emmy for his portrayal of Churchill in The Crown and Gary Oldman an Oscar for Darkest Hour.

Janet McTeer plays Clementine Churchill and gives a fine restrained performance which apparently was her intention as Clementine was a very reserved person. Iain Glen gives a strong performance a King George VI as does Len Cariou with Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Churchill is portrayed as a brilliant, heroic, inspirational leader, but also as a flawed man driven by what he perceives as his destiny or duty to prevail and succeed at all costs - ignoring everything and everyone else.

All in all it is a solid if not outstanding production.

Superficial. Talk about dumbing down! I suppose, to be fair, there are millions in Britain, and even more in America, who have no idea who Winston Churchill was and the service he performed. Doubtless these people need to have the basics spelled out. However, the result is a the equivalent of a Disney cartoon version of A Christmas Carol. As an English viewer I also could not escape the uneasy feeling that this was a slightly twee version of British history adapted for Americans.

Gleeson did not convince me as Churchill. As another reviewer has noted, he lacked the impish and self-deprecating humour which was such an important counterbalance to some of his less endearing qualities. Janet McTeer's part could have been played by almost anybody. And when did Attlee become a Scot? One of the most convincing bits was the actor they found for Stalin - surely one of the best lookalikes of all time. Otherwise I don't know how they managed to gather such a roster of top acting talent for insignificant roles.

Shame. It could have been good.

As you can gather from the other "reviewers" here, the only people who generally disliked this movie are the pretentious English snobs and those who want to be. Perhaps they forget, this is a movie. It, like all "true stories," lies on a historical foundation that is covered by a great deal of assumptions. Assumptions that have to be made because so few are left alive who knew Churchill, and even fewer who have reliable memories. Only so much screenplay and dialogue can be gleamed from the pages of a history book. Otherwise you'd end up with a documentary instead of a movie. If a documentary is more your taste, then watch one. This is a movie. And a damn good one.

Though "Into the Storm" is possibly a sequel to "The Gathering Storm," it can't hold a candle to it. Nor can the performance of Brendan Gleeson, as good as it was, approach Albert Finney's performance in The Gathering Storm.

This movie deals with Churchill being named Prime Minister and his concern for the British force which is now trapped, his destruction of the French fleet, his forming of a unified government, meeting with Stalin and Roosevelt, and his final ousting from office in 1945.

Naturally, as some of the reviews here point out, there was a great deal left out. One of the reviewers states that Roosevelt and Churchill are responsible for World War II by cutting off access to trade, and that Hitler was faced with starving his people.

I suppose that's one way to look at it, and one can spin events any way one wants. The fact is, Hitler couldn't have cared less about the German people and he starved them anyway. He took their pots and pans and anything else they had, including teenage boys when they were needed to fight. And in the end, when it was obvious Germany was losing, he blamed the Germans. To present him as a concerned dictator who cared about his people - I'm sorry, it's ludicrous.

The author Marcia Davenport (The Valley of Decision), who was in love with Czech freedom fighter Jan Maserek, said that Roosevelt and Churchill sold Eastern Europe down the river. The reference to Poland toward the end of the movie hints at letting Stalin have Eastern Europe rather than go to war again.

Getting back to this film - yes, a great deal was left out by necessity and yes, I suppose to some it seems too simplistic. I, too, felt it was on the sketchy side.

But what bothered me were all these famous phrases of Churchill's just tossed off in normal conversation, so that when he talked, he always sounded like he was making a speech. For me it gave the production a very stagy feel. Then, when it came for him to actually make a speech, they left out his biggest one.

The acting was good, as the cast was top drawer, with Janet McTeer as Clementine Churchill, Iain Glen as King George, Len Cariou as FDR, and Aleksey Petrenko as Josef Stalin.

For some reason, as I read through the reviews, some people expected these actors to do Rich Little impressions of these people and were complimentary of Petrenko because he looked like Stalin. I don't think lookalikes and vocal impressions were the point of the film.

If you're a novice and intend to read up on some of the other aspects of World War II, this is a good starting point. It's by no means definitive.

this is a very enjoyable war drama without reaching any great heights in excitement. Brendan Gleeson acts well as Churchill and overall the film gives us a good impression of the difficulties of the time and how Churchill managed those difficulties and his 'assistants'. His fallibility as well as his leadership are well known and I agree with the earlier comment that the Stalin like character was terrific and a real star in his somewhat brief role. Roosevelt was well portrayed and you should not worry Mr Attley was portrayed as a Scot.

I did find the twisting of the story a little annoying insofaras we are watching churchills life during the war years but the story softly concentrates on his holiday in France with his wife at the end of the war and his struggle to hold onto power.

Not convinced this is intended in any way to be a sequel to Gathering Storm.

there are some good one-liners in this movie by Churchill, King George and others. Not convinced Gleeson makes it his own as Churchill but cant fault him for his efforts and professionalism and it really doesn't matter that he is much younger than Churchill actually was, this is a drama film and lets not forget that.

100 minutes is long enough and we are spared warfare throughout the film. this is not a war film and nor is intended as a biography on Churchill the man but much more a documentary to churchills role as British leader during those war years.

Easy to mock it as a British as the film is intended clearly for an American audience but it does not deflect from its entertainment level and the ending is for once a satisfying one.

after all, always better to leave the cinema happy even if not in agreement with the outcome.