Darkest Hour

Gary Oldman is fantastic in the part, but the movie did very little to keep me engaged or entertained, unfortunately.

When viewing this movie, two recent movies spring immediately to mind: Dunkirk and Lincoln. Dunkirk comes to mind because of the battle being predominant to the narrative of the film. Dunkirk makes the battle visceral, sure, but this film surpasses it in describing how critical that battle was and its importance to Churchill's career. Lincoln is the film it more closely resembles. It's a character study of a national leader in their early years, during war, surrounded by political enemies with a standout performance by the lead. I found this movie more compelling because the character of Churchill more readily demonstrated his fear and lack of confidence in his own convictions which made for a more dramatic film that I thought brought the gravity of the war more to the fore. I'm not debating who was the better leader, but who had the more engaging story and I think this is it. It moves along at a good pace and the "secretary" character does a good job of being the new person added to the world so the "Morris the Explainer" exposition is fairly well camouflaged. 8/10