Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Peter Richardson

Writers:

Peter Richardson (written by) and
Pete Richens (written by) ...

Release Date:

3 December 2004 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy | War

Tagline:

He's got the tool and he'll finish the job.

Plot Keywords:

Queen Of England | Air Raid | WWII | Satire | Storm Trooper

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Jon Culshaw	...	Prime Minister
Tom Clarke Hill	...	Lieutenant Baker (as Tom Clarke-Hill)
Hamish McColl	...	Captain Davies
Christian Slater	...	Winston Churchill
Romany Malco	...	Denzil Eisenhower
Simon Rake	...	Reporter 1
James Long	...	Reporter 2
James Putnam	...	Reporter 3 (as James Puttnam)
Bob Mortimer	...	Potter
Vic Reeves	...	Bendle
Neve Campbell	...	Princess Elizabeth
Harry Enfield	...	King George VI
Jessica Oyelowo	...	Princess Margaret
Leslie Phillips	...	Lord W'ruff
Nigel Harrison	...	Jack

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Indonesia:Dewasa | Iceland:12 | Australia:M | Netherlands:12 | South Korea:15 | Finland:K-11 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Brixham, Devon, England, UK

Company:

Little Bird Productions

Trivia:

On the DVD commentary during the scene where US Churchill and Denzil Eisenhower exit the British War Office: director, Peter Richardson, dubs, "This is very r... relevant to the Iraq War".

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: A mat can be seen to cushion Jim Charoo's fall onto the railway track.

Quotes:

Radio Presenter: And, oh, here comes Satan. I mean, Josef Goebbels. Dressed in a magnificent black cloak, and horns.

Movie Connections:

References Mary Poppins (1964)

Soundtrack:

The Washing on the Siegfried Line

Should have been good, but isn't

For a long time now, Hollywood have overblown things, messed with facts and just generally not been all that honest with what has made it to the screen.. You can imagine then, the producers of Churchill - The Hollywood Years sat around thinking of ways to play with this idea. Making a send-up of Hollywood by casting Christian Slater as William Churchill must have seemed like a grand idea, and after seeing the trailer I was very much all for it...but it's safe to say that the film has missed the mark, and all Churchill - The Hollywood Years really is, is a bottom drawer action spoof with very little in the way of redeeming features or funny ideas. The film basically has one running joke, which is never good for a film; but it's especially rubbish when you realise that this joke isn't even capitalised on to the extent that it could have been. The film seems to be happy to just rely on giggles rather than big laughs, and only about half of these giggles work; and only about a quarter of the ones that work garner any kind of substantial laugh factor. This film isn't exactly sidesplitting.

One thing that definitely is to this movie's credit is the casting of Christian Slater in the lead role. Slater has made a lot of rubbish lately, and while this film isn't good; at least he's good in it. Slater gives Winston Churchill just the right essence of the standard 'American hero' and seeing him "kick butt" is always a pleasure. Well...it would be if the action sequences weren't so tacky. It's more local theatre than Hollywood. One miscasting is Neve Campbell as the queen of Britain. I'm a fan of Neve, and liked her a lot in the likes of 'Scream' and 'Wild Things', but here she just makes a fool of herself. Her British accent is stupid in the extreme and her performance isn't convincing at all. Like many British productions, this one has hired just about every British comedian going for various roles, and this doesn't do the film any favours in my opinion. Their caricatures are largely unfunny and it's obvious that they're only in the film so that they've got something to do. It's a huge shame that this film isn't very good as it could have been a nice little parody. Oh well.