Caricatural and sentimentalist

Rating: 4/10 (26 January 2018)

I wouldn't say I entirely disliked the movie; it was mildly entertaining, I suppose something I could watch on a bored Sunday afternoon. Its greatest merit, the way I see it, was showing Churchill's courage and leadership in this darkest hour and the opposition he was faced with from all sides. The rest seemed to me to be the stuff of caricature and sentimentalism, to the extent that I wondered whether or not I was watching a Spielberg movie, in moments such as the underground scene, and the one in which Churchill takes his secretary to the map room to explain the dire situation in the continent. It is entirely unjustifiable that the movie have spent so many minutes with kitsch sentimental scenes with Churchill's secretary, in the sense of their trivial purpose in the movie. The underground scene is a blow to the suspension of disbelief. It is obvious at several points that the movie wants to pay homage to our current Zeitgeist of equality. At any rate, the story is interesting, but the movie is a cheap version of Spielberg sentimentalism.