Darkest Hour, Mukkabaaz, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri The Film Review

on BBC News, it's time for the film

reviewment

-- review.

Hello and welcome to the Film Review

on BBC News.

To take us through this week's

cinema releases is Mark Kermode.

So Mark, what do we have this week?

We have Darkest Hour, for which Gary

Oldman is tipped for Oscars. We have

Mukkabaaz a boxing movie come

political romance. And Three

Billboards.

Darkest Hour, you wait

years for a Churchill film to come

along and you get two at once

We

reviewed Churchill on the show a few

months ago. The story was that Brian

Cox was playing brilliantly, I

think, Churchill anxiety ridden in

the run up to D-Day. Now Gary Oldman

as Churchill, anxiety ridden around

the time of Dunkirk. It's 1940. The

Nazis are sweeping across Europe,

the resistance is crumbling

everywhere. He's being advised to

appease rather than fight. Here's a

clip.

Nothing even remotely

patriotic in death or glory if the

odds are firmly on the former.

Nothing inglorious in trying to

shorten a war that we are clearly

losing.

Losing! Europe is still...

Europe is lost. And before our

forces are wiped out completely, now

is the time to negotiate. In order

to obtain the best conditions

possible. Hitler will not insist on

outrageous terms. He will know his

own weaknesses. He will be

reasonable.

When will the lessons be

learned? When will the lesson be

learned? ! How many more dictators

must be woulded, a-- wooed,

appeased, before we learn! You

cannot reason with a tiger when your

head is in its mouth.

That is pretty

much the give me an award clip.

There's no surprise it's got such

awards buzz about it.

He won a

Golden Globe.

Yeah, I think I

remember in 2012, when it looked

like he was going to win the Oscar,

then beaten to the punch. I think

this time may be his year. It is a

terrific performance, despite being

buried under a lot of facial

prosthetics, you know, you can see

his personality coming through. It's

a very interesting take on

Churchill. I think the performance

has conviction and grit, much as I

really, really like the Brian Cox

films, this is a really solid,

awards-courting and probably awards

worthy performance. The problem is

the film itself, which is not as

good. It's to Joe Wrigtt's credit

that he's trying to inject a sense

of immediate Agassi and urgency into

-- urgency into a bunch of people

arguing in rool essentially. But he

mixes up on one hand very well

created, you know historical

recreations with utterly fanciful

dramatic license. Such as a scene in

which Churchill suddenly decides to

take a quick referenda of the way

the British public feel by going on

the Tube train and asking people

what they think about what's going

on, in a scene which whatever the

emotional truth of it may be, just

struck me as utterly preposterous.

The central performance is very

good.

It's a crack cast.

It's a very

good cast and clearly a crowd

pleaser. It's going down incredibly

well with the American critics and I

think, I have no doubt that it will

play very well. I have to say, from

my point of view there were moments

in it that I thought it was cringy.

I felt like it was explaining

everything, you know, obviously,

this is complicated subject matter,

but there are certain moments in

which characters don't have to be

introduced by their name, their

title and rank whilst they're

actually in the room with you, but

the thing that will carry it is the

performance. It is a really good

performance. I think it will

continue to be rewarded with awards.

We will soon know in the next few

weeks. What's the second choice?

The

Brawler, Mukkabaaz, a politically

tinged boxing movie. Young boxer

struggling to find his place in the

world he finds himself at odds with

the local big boss. He falls in love

with a young woman who has no voice

but whose actions speak volumes.

It's occasionally a ramshackle

affair. The dialogue is full of

cloak we'll can youing. The --

cussing. The fight series you feel

that you're watching people beating

seven bells out of each other. It

has the ability to eschew

conventions and mix in grit and

substance. I felt it could be

tightened up on time a bit. But I

liked that firstly it is a bit

anarchic. You're not sure where it's

going. It seems to switch genres at

certain times. It keeps you on your

toes. I mean a boxing movie should

do, it is a film which dances around

and keeps you alert. I enjoyed. It

it's not perfect, but it's a pretty

solid thriller with some sort of

social things to say as well.

OK,

yeah, that's interesting. Good to

bring us something that I didn't

know much about. I feel like I've

read a lot about Three Billboards.

I'm a huge Francis McDormott fan.

She's most famous for fargo. Like

Darkest Hour this is a major Oscar

contender. It's a western inflected

tragedy, comedy. This is a grieving

mother who her daughter was abducted

a killed and the local police force

headed up by the police hasn't made

any arrests. In a state of

desperation she decides to take

those Three Billboards and emblazen

them with signs that name and shape

the police department and say how

come there have been no arrests?

Here's a clip.

When the DNA don't

match no-one who's ever been

arrested and when the DNA don't

match any other crime nationwide,

and when there wasn't a single

eyewitness from the time she left

your house to the time we found her,

well, right now, there ain't too

much more we can do.

You could pull

blood from every man and boy in this

town, over the age of eight.

There's

several rights laws prevents that's.

What if he was just passing through.

Put Blackpool from every man in the

country.

What if he was passing

through the country?

If it was me,

I'd start up a database, every male

born that was born, his him on it.

Cross-reference it, make 100%

certain it was a correct match, then

kill him.

Yeah, well, there's

definitely civil rights laws

prevents that.

You can see from that

clip that what the film does is it

plays with your sympathies. What

she's saying there is outrageous.

Suddenly the chief is reasonable. I

think the real triumph of this film

is it's a tragi-comedy, that's one

of the few clips we could play

without the swearing in it. It is

very funny. It can make you laugh

and guffaw.

He writes brilliantly.

He had a cynical edge before. But

this actually has heart. Because the

tragedy is if anything more powerful

than the comedy. What you get is a

story about people who are eaten up

by rage, eaten up by anger, eaten up

by desperation. It's really a film

about how those things impact upon

the characters. There are these

lines that are delivered as trite

little greeting card messages, anger

only begets greater anger. Through

love comes calm. Yet they seem to be

sincere. What really surprised me is

how tender this film S yes, it's

funny, yes, very violent. Yes it's

very dark. Yes it deals with edgy

subject matter. But it has a really

tender heart. It upsets some people

because all the characters are seen

to be three dimensional, like Sam

Rockwell is introduced as a racist

come. But as it goes on, you see he

is a victim of his circumstances.

That doesn't play very well with

everybody because it is a film about

moral ambivalence in which there

isn't a good character or a bad

character. Everybody is in this more

ras. I have seen it twice. Second

time it was more powerful. When it

needs to be funny, it is blistering

funny. But it's really tragic. Oddly

enough, very tender.

Goodness. Rich.

Very rich film.

Yes, I'd be

interested to know what you think

about it.

We can discuss next week,

for now, I know Best Out is another

film, stunning scenery, beautiful

setting, but bleak as well.

Yes

hostiles the end of an era western.

Christian Bale is a battle hardened

captain ordered to take his nemesis

back to his sacred lands to die. It

is a film therefore about coming to

terms with the legacy of violence.

Actually the reason I've chosen it

is because it has a brilliant score,

which is really einvolve Tiff. The

-- evocative. It seems to come out

of the landscape. It really captured

me. I think it's not getting perhaps

the attention that it should have

got. It's a very interesting piece

of work. It's called Hos tiles. It's

worning it for the score alone --

worth it for the score alone.

For

DVD, one of the films of last year

Detroit. Why isn't that on the film

radar

I don't begin to understand.

So well made.

Anatomy of an

uprising. Both actors brilliant. I

would have had both of them in

Supporting Actor nominations.

Fantastically directed yet somehow

it seems to have slipped off the

radar, which is a shame. I thought

it was a really gripping piece of

work.

Absolutely. A hard watch, but

brilliant.

It has to be tough

because of the subject matter. It

would be wrong if it waebts.

Absolutely. This is the chance to

see it if you didn't see it in the

cinema. Thank you very much. See you

next week. There is of course, more

film news and reviews from across

the BBC on the website. You know the

address, bbc.co.uk/Mark Kermode.

Find our previous programmes on the

BBCi player. It's a busy week at the

cinema. Enjoy your cinema going. See

-- you next time, bye-bye.