Dad's Army, Rams, Trumbo The Film Review

the Premier League with the top two set to meet. That is in Sports day

at 6.30. Now time for The Film Review.

Hello and welcome to The Film Review on BBC News.

To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.

We have Trumbo, with a stand out performance by Bryan Cranston. We

have Rams an Icelandic film about sheep and sibling rivalry and Dad's

Army, coming back to the big screen. All human life is here. First

Trumbo, the story of a screen writer who suffered under the

anti-communist purge in the 40s and 50s and was blacklisted as a writer.

When we meet him he is a highly respected writer. He is asked to

testify before the house of representatives and then he faces

jail and is employable. This is before this happens when he is with

his wife and the I like the film in

show forced labour! think Bryan Cranston does a great

job. But Diane Lane does a great interesting that blacklist is

something that has been returned to Woody Allen film. In any version of

this story there will be a degree of simplification. You have

reservations. I loved the performances, I thought the heart

was in the right place, but the script was not. One of children

goes, daddy, what is a communist. He said if one kid doesn't have lunch,

you share your lunch. No, in 50s a communist was Stalin occupying

eastern Europe and sending people to Gu lags. I get the point about

simplification. Rather like the film about Margaret Thatcher, where you

didn't understand why people didn't like her, you didn't understand why

people didn't like people who were communists in the 50s. Interestingly

the daughter was asked about th conversation and said id did it lap.

He give me an answer. I said can I be a communist. He said, no you're

not 21. In real life the character of Trumbo was different. What it

does get is that you don't just get a portrait of a sort of civil a

martyr, but someone who is writing B movies for John Goodman, he said I

have a gorilla suit, I need something to do with it. You esee

him as difficult and I mean I agree that I think it is not the best

written piece. I think to some extent it is, it has a television

quality, but Cranston's performance is great. That has got all the

recognition so far. I think it is important how much Diane Lane's

character enables you to tap into living with Trumbo. And all his

difficulties. I didn't know what he had written. I won't spoil it, but

the reveals of what he wrote in secret was amazing. Probably the

best film on Icelandic sheep I will see all week. That is underselling

it but two brothers both of whom are raising sheep and they have this

regular competition for the best ram, but they don't talk to each

other. It seems they're not ever going to talk and then the herd is

threatened by scrapie. What is interesting about the film that was

the Icelandic entry for the Oscar best foreign film award, it has that

Nordic dead pan, is it comic or tragic, funny or heartbreaking? Is

it hilarious or really sort of deeply worrying. What I like about

it is that so much of the film plays out not to do with dialogue, but

beardy Mo rose gesture. You need to see is in the cinema, it has a

lovely sweep to it and there an end of the world quality to it. I went

in not knowing what to expect, I thought it was drol, and also

touching and tragic. One of best performances by a sheepdog in a

movie I have seen for a long time. I love a good sheepdog. It runs

between the brothers, because they don't talk. And they have the sheep

Oscars. That was the best ram competition. One comes first and

second, but they don't speak. It is oddly moving and strangely droel. I

love Dad's Army and want to see this film and lake it. But I haven't. You

hear of the casting and you think it is create. You have Toby Jones and

Michael Gambon and Tom Courtney. How could it go wrong? Here is a clip.

Very good men, breaking up the outline.

You're not taking this seriously, are you Walker?

Ah, put some thought into this Jones.

Thank you captain, Mrs Fox lent it me from last year's

production of Robin Hood, I'm a tiny bit of Sherwood Forest.

You look like you're on a cruise to the South Seas.

Thank you so much Sir, that's very kind of you.

I got the idea from a picture I saw last week, South of Pago Pago.

Now, listen men, Sergeant Wilson's mission is to reach our

So we all need to keep our eyes peeled at all times.

If I know Wilson he will have charmed his way into a lift.

There are things to like in that. The problem is this - those small

moments, Michael Gambon, he says you look terrible, he says thank you

very much. Those moments are good. What it lacks is the script, which

does haven't the interpersonal intimacy of the TV show. This is

partly of making a film, you have to open it out. It is as far as the

direction is concerned, it is fairly plodding, it opens with a bull in a

field and ends with a battle on a beach and you lose that Dad's Army

was about nothing happening, but them being in a church hall. There

was a war somewhere. They want to be part of it, but they weren't. So now

I didn't not laugh, I laughed a few times. I didn't laugh as much as I

should have done considering how good the cast are, but it is not a

total failure. But what it is is a sort of moderate disappointment with

moments in it that make you think that there could have been a better

film in this. Gambon as private Godfrey is very funny. Toby Jones

gets the slapstick and the pathos of the pompous Mainwaring. But the

script is weird, it gives them both too much and too little to do. There

is too much baggy narrative and what you want is them standing in the

church hall bickering. We saw Bill Nighy. I will give it a go. Maybe

not with high expectations. There are moments that work, but they make

you realise how much the best of it isn't. The best it. Room. Yes go see

Room. It is not the film you think it is. It is an uplifting story.

Your DVD choice is the Martians. I loved it. I am not sure the science

stands up. Most of it does stand up, apart from the storm. But apparent

think rest of it does. The film that won the gloelden globe for -- Golden

Globe for best musical comity. The story is Matt Damon is stuck on Mars

and will use his botany skills. It is a drama with comedy in it. It is

not a musical, because it plays Abba in the middle. I loved the film, but

I ain't a musical or a comedy. On that happy note...

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