Outstanding Old Man

Rating: 10/10 (14 January 2018)

Of course it was a rather stylised Hollywood view of what happened.
But nonetheless it is a fact that a 65 year old Winston Churchill was handed the reigns of a war we seemed totally unprepared for hours before Germany steamrollered into Western Europe.
Churchill was certainly not popular but had warned about the evil of fascism long before Hitler revealed himself to be the monstrous tyrant he actually was.
Gary Oldman of all people captured the essence of the man who took it upon himself to say NO! to appeasing the Nazi and allowing them to become overlords of Western Europe.
His performance was astonishing.
Yes the tube trip was a fantasy and he was never cheered as if he was some American Quarterback or regaled with a shower of order papers.
But he gave my country hope when we had nothing to fight with and were about to lose the only professional army we had.
The pressure on this old man (pun intended) must have been unbelievable.
The other Oldman gives us a feel of what that may have been like.
His relationship with his long time wartime secretary was well played by Lily James even if the timeline was flawed. And Kristin Scott Thomas was very good as Clementine.
The Americans got a cursory nod which was nice to see as they were like the last war nowhere to be seen until it was nearly over so it was good that they were barely acknowledged.
It was Churchill who made it possible to achieve final victory along with our Russian allies by holding England together and imbuing us with the spirit to resist.
I knew many people who were there during those days who said as much.
Churchill indeed fought with words and Gary Oldman gave us a flavour of the man and some of his many flaws.
He was no great friend to the working man which was why he was replaced by Atlee in the 1945 election.
But as a war leader and a beacon for resistance in the first years of WW2 he probably deserved the accolade of one of the greatest men of the 20th century.
This Hollywood style version has its faults but its subject is not one of them. Played with an Oscar winning panache from the last person I would ever have thought I would see in the role of Winston Churchill.
Flawed? yes.
Sometimes Hollywood silly? yes but nonetheless a great movie about a great man.