Churchill: The Hollywood Years

Churchill: The Hollywood Years

This film is a turd, and I hated it! I expected it to be good, based on what I'd read. I sat down to watch it, believing that I was about the watch a well-thought-out and memorable comedy. In place, I was given completely forgettable and very much predictable drudgery. The expected humour was replaced with petulant slapstick that would fail to entertain anyone over 12, Hitler-jokes that've been used a million times before, a plot that rips off several superior action-comedies of the last decade; leaving me with a subtle desire that the Germans had won so I wouldn't have had to watch this tripe. Chris Slater is completely out of step with the nature of the film, and was very much the wrong choice for the role, although the King and, naturally, Rik Mayall are among the strong (and actually funny) performances. Churchill: the Hollywood years fails not only to deliver comedy, but also makes no comment on, or parody of the Hollywood history that spawned its' creation. Given the thoroughly unfunny nature of the speech, I'm guessing that the scriptwriters were Germans, who are of course noted for their lack of humour.

I can't believe I wasted 90 minutes of my life watching this! I hope that all the people involved are ashamed of themselves! About the only amusing thing in this film is Leslie Philips swearing like an Irish Navvie! Personally speaking, I would be horrified if I were related to or friends with: the Churchill family, any of the senior officers in the war and their families, the Eisenhower family; let alone the Royal family (and believe me I am not a fan of theirs!) I know its supposed to be amusing, but telephones on trains, the Archers and a train that looped past the same bit of countryside several time? This was a 90 minute running insult to the intelligence of everyone! Should have a health warning on it!

Well, where to start... This film had so much promise but simply fails to deliver. It has one joke that is its premise, but the script is just terrible. I think I laughed about 4 times during the entire film. I just cannot understand how this script could've been allowed to have been made into a film. It seemed like someone thought-up quite a funny idea and then thought "oh, instead of being a quite funny sketch or two, let's make it a film". Thus, it's dragged out and the script is filled with loads of 'jokes' which just don't work. It's quite watchable; the acting is quite good, but that's not enough to save it. It's a spoof, a parody, but it isn't a comedy. That may seem oxymoronic, but it's a fact. I'd hoped for something as good as Naked Gun or Airplane; I didn't get it. As hard as the actors tried, the film just can't escape the fact that it has so little substance that it ends up a major disappointment.

**Might contain spoilers, although i can't believe that it's possible to spoil this rubbish** The mere fact that this film currently has a rating of 5.3 is a joke. It deserves no more than 2. It's a useless film, lacking any humour and most of all any story. The idea itself isn't the worst. Do a comedy where Winston Churchill was an flashy American rather than the strong and alcoholic British war leader we all know and respect. To take this half decent idea and turn it into the single worst comedy of all time is unforgivable. Most of the so called comedy performances are woeful, Vic and Bob - who once used to be funny! - are pathetic. There is hardly any story, and what story there is either makes no sense or is so bad you'd rather it wasn't there at all. Christian Slatter! You're having a Barry!!!! Just about everything in this film stinks, even the title stinks. The one joke which doesn't want to make you vomit your face off involves your stereotypical British failure of transport. Don't expect it to make you laugh, or even chuckle, you may rise a little smile. I purchased the DVD having been assured off a friend that it is funny, that person has since told me he was "having a laugh". I now refuse to speak to him. The DVD currently lies at the bottom of a pile of crap DVDs which contains woeful entertainment such as Extras, Teen Wolf Too (+ teen wolf, which is okay), Bo Selecta series 3, The day after tomorrow, Jaws 2, 3, 4 and Licence to Drive. Yes this film is worse than Jaws 3! I do plan on either burning it or perhaps giving it away, so if anyone wants this pile of crap then drop me an email, i'd be delighted to hand it over - so long as you don't hold me responsible for any negative effect it will have on your brain - and i'd be delighted to pay the postage to get rid of the rubbish. ..So yeah, i think this film is useless. If i could give it Zero it'd get zero, but since the lowest i can give it is 1, that is what it's getting. It doesn't even get an extra point for being "so bad, it's good" because quite frankly, its so bad its worse than bad. We're talking Santa with Muscles here, kids.

I'd had this sat on my shelf for a while having bought it as part of a job lot of DVDs. But I was pleasantly surprised. The film is much more clever than it seems with several in jokes and knowing nods to those who know there 'Comic Strip' and also enjoy taking the mickey out of jingoism, of any nation. To those who don't get that this is a satire more than a parody, note the way that 'Churchill' delivers the Enigma machine to Lord W'ruff within one of the first few scenes. So it's not rip roaring - so what ? If you want the same old re-heated jokes then the Scary Movie franchise is probably more up your street. This is more the Pete Richardson of 'The Strike' or 'GLC'. It's brave of film producers to throw money at this kind of production, rather than letting it fall to TV and have to make compromises. The money is on the screen. It's a good time film. For me Reeves and Mortimer play perfectly to form in their hammy cameos. Slater gets the joke and takes a leaf from Charlie Sheen and the Hot Shots movie. The only disappointment is that Miranda Richardson is so under used. Not a popcorn film for the modern world of MTV and Big Brother, but certainly one worth watching just the once as a balance against the Michael Bay * fests such Pearl Harbour or Armageddon.

Christian slater comedy?? aye OK! i'll rent it on DVD and i'm glad i paid 3 quid instead of 6 for watching it in the flicks. This is a steaming pile of utter dung. I watched the first half hour of this film and hated every minute of it. It was excruciating to see Christian Slater act in this dung. The script was dung the acting was excrement. I didn't know it was a British comedy before i rented it, i now wish i knew beforehand. Peter Richardson writer/director/whatever formerly of the "comic strip presents" knows nothing about comedy. British comedy hasn't been worthwhile since the Boulting brothers and Ealing studios quite easily threw out genuine classics!. In short this film had no direction script stars or anything worthwhile to recommend it. The film should be re-titled "lets get every Z list name from British TV and mug at the camera"...I wouldn't give peter Richardson 10 quid to direct a claims4u advert. Christian Slater you should hang your head in shame!

One hint about "Churchill: The Hollywood Years": Ask around . . . no one's seen it. Cooler heads probably managed to mothball this seeming direct-to-airline release. (I sat through it having run out of other on-demand options during a very long flight from Asia to NYC.) The premise in an interesting one, not a good one; Hollywood producers have made a Winston Churchill bio-pic with a young American GI (Christian Slater) in the lead for the benefit of the American audience. It's hard to single out the writing, acting, or direction for criticism because the entire film seems to consist of (justified) outtakes from a movie that may have had some idea what it was doing in the comic space between "Airplane" and "The Player." The film that finally makes it on to the seatback in front of you is jaw droppingly ill-conceived.

This film was awful, AWFUL! It makes jokes out of the British, particularly the English, and myself being Scottish I should be content with that, but I was not. The jokes in the film were not especially funny, nor clever, and some of them just crude. The film really just bored me senseless, it was quite confusing at times, plus Neve Campbell does a rank English accent. The only enjoyable part of the film in my opinion was watching John Culshaw do his fabulous impression of Tony Blair like he does in Dead Ringers. All in all this was the worst movie that I watched in 2004, and expect that the director should be shot(!)... only joking.