Oldman shines in this Churchill feature

Rating: 7/10 (11 February 2018)

Death and taxes, the certainties in life, now have a friend; Gary Oldman the 2018 Best Actor Oscar winner.
Like the certainty of our ever encroaching end, there is no chance that well-respected British icon Gary Oldman won't be walking away from this year's Oscar's ceremony without a golden statue for his mantelpiece for his stunning and tour-de-force performance as esteemed English prime minister Winston Churchill.
Dominating Joe Wright's dialogue heavy and rather intimate study of the Prime Minister in a very specific time of his life, when he was ushered into the role of England's leader in the heat of German's attack on Europe and in particular England's potentially disastrous Dunkirk situation, Oldman disappears under brilliant prosthetics and make-up and truly becomes Churchill in a turn that shows the iconic figure as a man with a wickedly dark sense of humour, a stoic determination to do what he feels is best and most tellingly, a man that feels the pain and pressure to lead a country in its most bleak time of need.
Darkest Hour will not satisfy those seeking an expansive examination of Churchill's upbringing or those seeking war time spectacle but for those looking to get an insight into Churchill's mindset and to get a feel for a man that played such a big part in the greatest war we've ever seen, Darkest Hour will hold your attention throughout and leave you at times breathless from Oldman's turn.
Narrowing his focus onto but a few weeks of Churchill's reign and in particular three key speeches the Prime Minister made in the month of May of 1940, Wright's film isn't anything ground-breaking but thanks to Oldman and some key supports, Darkest Hour is one of the rare modern movies that thrives purely off its actors without the usual modern pizazz taking centre stage.
Surrounded by quality supports such as Kristin Scott Thomas as Churchill's beloved wife Clemmie, Baby Driver standout Lily James as Churchill's typewriting assistant Elizabeth Layton and Ben Mendelsohn as King George VI, with whom Oldman shares some delightfully awkward scenes with, Darkest Hour is truly an acting showpiece with some added well-established production design and bigger budget sensibilities, assuring that Wright's film feels like more than just a jazzed-up BBC event.
At the end of the day though all else within Darkest Hour matters little in comparison to Oldman, very much the captain of this particular cinematic ship, Oldman is the key ingredient to this feature and the reason as to why Darkest Hour has found itself a key part of this year's awards season.
Final Say -
While there's nothing particularly special about Darkest Hour outside of a well-trimmed script and some fine acting supports, there's something undeniably magical about Oldman's portrayal of Churchill that will go down as one of the most impressive lead turns of the modern movie era and the quintessential embodiment of one of the most iconic political figures of all time.
3 ½ wrongly executed hand gestures out of 5