Film Review - The Darkest Hour (2018)

The Darkest Hour is directed by Joe Wright and stars Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill who is anointed by his majesty King George (Ben Mendelsohn) to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the time of the Second World War but before the Americans would enter the conflict but although there are those in his government that favour seeking peace terms Mr Churchill feels otherwise.

Darkest Hour is first off well staged by Mr Wright he uses many camera flourishes and long editorial takes to guide people from office to office as well as stage several scenes of bombers on the front and secondly the film is very well performed.

Firstly on that front Oldman is terrific and though there are times he can become hard to hear when he gets going in the role he holds your attention but there are others that are also quite good as well Mendelsohn is one of them and it’s a real shame he isn’t getting more attention for his performance as he is very good as well and Lily James and Kristen Scott Thomas are also good here as well though they don’t get an awful lot to do apart from sit around, look concerned and type speeches.

But seeing this movie after Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk came out last year made this film for me at least a little stuffy and a little traditional in its storytelling approach for you see what I loved about Dunkirk was that it stripped itself of the generals in rooms and political discussions in bunkers scenes and put you the audience viewer solely on that beach and in that situation and Nolan crafted it in such a way that it was like silent running suspense thriller where every moment counted and the clock was ticking.

As a result of that approach it felt like a very unique way to tell a war story and to go back to a more traditional way after that it makes this movie as well directed and performed as it is feel second rate and at one point during this movie I wished I was watching Dunkirk instead.

And so that was the Darkest Hour a fine enough film that is well directed and performed but after Dunkirk it feels very stuffy and second rate, 2 out of 5.