Joe Wright directs Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott-Thomas and Ben Mendelsohn in this WWII drama looking at the pressure put on Churchill to negotiate with Hitler during the Dunkirk crisis. 

An enthusiastic Gary Oldman performance is slightly obscured by layers of blubbery rubber. There are a few too many shots of his shimmering eyes peering out from beneath the restrictive mask that reminded me of the adverts for the Tower of London or Madame Tussaud’s. The glossy ones where a look-a-like of Henry VIII or Jack the Ripper would turn to make eye contact with you over your tube of Pringles. “Come meet history, for a fee.” Joe Wright’s normally dancing, dive bombing camera and framing work appears slightly stifled by a story stuck in bunkers and bedrooms too. Perfectly fine but you wouldn’t seek out a second watch… not unless you fancied doubling it up with Nolan’s Dunkirk for their parallel timelines.

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