They were really banking on that title. Put a big old Casablanca on there and somebody's bound to pick it up. And I guess I'm the sucker in this case because I'm the one that's saw it.
It's a simple story with the veneer of complexity. Winston Churchill is in North Africa and everyone's concern that the Nazis will find out about this. Than try to try to kidnap or kill him. So there's this big discussion on what to do with Winston. There is debating to stick him in a plane, other saying it'd be safer on train. Then deciding in the end to send both out, one with a decoy.
And the rest of the film is this big contrived event in where a bunch of Nazi secret agents sneak onto the train that Winston Churchill happens to be attending, so they can hijack the train, stop in a particular area and have a paratroop division of German soldiers touchdown and kidnap him. And it all sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
But the script is really simplistic, the actors aren't giving any real material to deal with. The set pieces are all really simple and stagnant. The overall structure to the film is quite cheap.
And that's to say nothing of the incredibly awkward soundtrack that sounds like a weird mix of Star Wars and The Legend of Zelda. It's this weird chippy little tune that belongs on some cheap television show. And it plays in every single action scene.
It just doesn't work. And not only was it a slog to try and sit through and watch. But then trying to recount what happened in the story afterwards and write it down here he's just such a headache.
And if that wasn't bad enough; The version I acquired happened to be some crummy bootleg that I didn't know what at the time. It honestly look like a badly recorded live television broadcast from 95. The aspect ratio is all screwed up and it had those horrible tracking issues where you can see the sides of the screen, starting to tear away because of an overused VHS tape.
And I mean, come on! You have a World War II movie revolving around Winston Churchill. Arguably one of the most influential and Fascinating People of the 20th century. The only other person that comes anywhere close to Winston Churchill in the world is Joseph Stalin.
So how can anything involving the man seem boring.
If you can't make a historically grounded movie interesting then go the other direction and have something zany happen. Give me Winston Churchill wielding a Maxim gun shooting down hundred the Nazis as they fall from the sky.
It turns out that this was an Italian production, and I'm starting to develop a theory in my head that the Italians can't make good World War II Allied Centric movies.
I'm still hoping for the day when I'm proven wrong. I mean, look at their western films, horror movies and dramas. Italy's produced some of the greatest films in history.
It's a subpar movie. And my little review of it is incredibly subpar too. I just couldn't care enough to go through and clean it up. Which is saying something given that my English is horrible to begin with.
Just watch Casablanca. That's a phenomenal film.
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