Churchill

'CHURCHILL' was directed by Jonathan Teplitzky and stars Brian Cox, Miranda Richardson and John Slattery. ?Fearful of repeating the invasion of Gallipoli in 1915, Winston Churchill attempts to stop the planned invasion of Normandy in 1944. Only the support of Churchill's wife, Clementine, can halt the prime minister's physical and mental collapse.

I desperately wanted to love this movie. I really did. This is a fascinating period of our history and would have loved to see a great depiction of Churchill's perception of it on our screens for the world to enjoy. Alas, I did not. It's a melodramatic mess that has Brian Cox's unfathomable acting ability keeping it barely alive. The only other positive I can conceive is the splendid speech at the end because the rest of the movie was messy, incoherent and, the worst sin of all, boring.

This movie's structure is were it falters greatly for me. While the plot and point are clear, it doesn't feel like one flowing narrative. The scenes feel messy and out of place(when they aren't) and it overall doesn't appear like much effort went into the creation of the story for this film.

I wouldn't usually do an entire section of a review on the direction but that is the main way this movie falters, at least for me. 90% of the scenes in this movie are shot, acted and scored in the fashion that makes it seem like the fate of the universe rests in these characters words and makes the whole movie stupidly melodramatic. This style works for brief moments in the film but fails overall. A much less dramatic, more relaxed style that still displayed Churchill's eccentric nature would have sufficed but instead they opted for a melodramatic mess,

Brian Cox was honestly great in this movie and I bought every second of his performance. I don't agree that he reaches Oscar levels but I do believe he gets quite close. Miranda Richardson and John Slattery both do fine as Clementine Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower respectively but neither of them come close to Cox's undeniable skill.

The costume and set design for this movie was really good and felt genuine to the era. The cinematography is a very strange subject. On the one hand, it is overly dramatic and feels very weird in scenes that don't require the world to be resting on them. On the other hand, there are a few scenes, like the masterfully written speech, where this format works stupidly well and is very, very effective. So I am pretty torn with this format of cinematography but I feel that it is pretty weak as a whole package.

As good as Cox and the speech are, this movie is probably not worth your time overall. I don't recommend you watch it and I'll rate it a measly 3 Glasses of Scotch out of 10.

Never..in the field of cinematography..has so much crap been made to be watched by so many people. When the DVD comes out we will see it on the beaches...see it in the wheelie bins...etc I was dying to say that so there you go.

Good points are that if you knew nothing about Churchill, this could pass as a good " based on real events" matinée movie. All the cast do as much as they needed to pay their mortgages...sometimes beautifully filmed and neatly directed...if sometimes it wallowed in it's own importance.

Now the bad points..totally and absurdly historically inaccurate. Badly written and all through tries to build up to a crescendo but falls flat every time.You leave the theatre no wiser of what went on and who Churchill really was. As much as I admire Brian Cox ( I think his portrayal as Hannibal Lecter is almost as good as Tony Hopkins...and that's a MASSIVE compliment) I think he was miscast.

They had a chance to show us the mind of one of the few people who changed the world ...and I walked out of the theatre cold and short changed.

Watch it on a wet day but cannot give more than a 4!!

It's not like this viewer watched 'Churchill' expecting or wanting to hate it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually very much wanted 'Churchill' to succeed, considering that it is based on an important historical figure and his incredible story. Also very much like historical dramas and the cast is enough to draw anybody in.

'Churchill' turned out to be a real disappointment. Not one of the year's worst, it's nowhere near as bad as 'The Mummy' or 'Transformers: The Last Knight', but it's one of the most disappointing. It has been remarked that the representation of Churchill and his story is grossly inaccurate to the point of perversity. This is true, but 'Churchill' has more wrong with it than just historical inaccuracy and for now will be judged on its own as a film.

Let's start with the good things. The best thing about it is the magnificent performance of Brian Cox, a blistering portrayal and also a nuanced one that never resorts to mimicry, caricature or imitation. He may not sound like Churchill but man did he do his work. Faring best in support is an imperious Miranda Richardson and the two work very well together.

Jonathan Teplitzsky directs with some degree of dignity and the production values are spot on meticulous, beautifully photographed and with production and costume design that's atmospheric, sumptuous and evocative. The make-up for Churchill is well done.

Unfortunately, 'Churchill' is let down primarily by a thinly sketched, melodramatic and contrived script and a plodding over-stretched story that feels muddled in tone and focus. Most of the support acting doesn't work, John Slattery lacks the gravitas for Eisenhower and James Purefoy is in every sense one of the grossest miscasts for any film personally seen recently.

Pacing is leaden, and this is coming from somebody who is quick to defend deliberately paced films criticised for being "boring" (one of his most hated words as of now), too often and the music score is far too intrusive to an annoying degree.

Overall, disappointing but not a complete disaster. 5/10 Bethany Cox

This film may make a good story but it doesn't make good history.It is true to say that the casualties on the first day in Normandy equalled those on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.However it is difficult to give much credence to the notion of the film.Churchill would have been aware of the threat posed by the V rockets and the prospect that if nothing were done eventually the whole of Europe would have been overrun by Stalin's Soviet army.Also by this time Churchill had very little say in things and he was aware of this.He was not senile,which the film implies,but he was haunted by depression,which the film chooses not to mention.All told this is a film which is totally unworthy of the great man's memory.

Yet another film where they feel the audience is too stupid to have any knowledge of the subject, so must dumb it all down into patronising pap.

Not happy with insulting us already, they then take historical facts and rewrite them totally for no other reason than they can. Then slip in the old adage "Based On A True Story" which like so many films, claiming to be 'Based on a true story' is actually code for a load of B.S. pretending to be factual.

Churchill was one of the greatest, complex and most flawed characters of recent history.

Instead of going with truth (and therefore being much much more interesting) they went for a Hollywood horrible caricature full of errors and downright lies.

I'm not surprised the writer has no other credits shown on IMDb. This is atrocious pap. Insulting to a great man, who we were privileged for him to give 'the lions roar' for us, in the face of evil.

People watch films like this and others e.g. 'The Imitation Game' and think they are portraying factual history. They leave the theatre feeling they have learned something, instead it varies from gross distortion of the truth to out and out lie.

The irony is, the true story is so much more interesting. But it means the writers would have to put a lot of work in portraying it. Hence it's more convenient to serve us this pap and pass it off as 'historical'.

the reviews saying this is an 'Insight into Churchill' etc, shows real ignorance and how Hollywood rewrites history.