Churchill: The Hollywood Years

2004

Comedy / War

2
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 34% · 5 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 34% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 4.9/10 10 2678 2.7K

Plot summary

A group of American executives making a film about World War II decide that since their lead is rather unglamorous, they will draft in an American G.I. to play the part of Winston Churchill. Their take on the war depicts a handsome Churchill falling in love with Princess Elizabeth, who is herself involved in the war as an undercover agent.

Director

Peter Richardson Photo
Peter Richardson

Top cast

Doon Mackichan Photo
Doon Mackichan as Radio Host
Neve Campbell Photo
Neve Campbell as Princess Elizabeth
Christian Slater Photo
Christian Slater as Winston Churchill
Romany Malco Photo
Romany Malco as Denzil Eisenhower
720p.WEB
741.16 MB
1280*718
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
25 fps
1 hr 20 min
Seeds 4

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by whiggles 5 / 10

Amusing enough, but inconsistent

When taken in the right spirit, this is a pretty enjoyable film, but it has its share of problems nonetheless. Sold as a parody of the way Hollywood tends to treat actual historical events, it doesn't really live up to its promises as it only occasionally does a decent job of lampooning its subject matter. When it does, it's very funny - my favourite exchange being (paraphrased) "It's up to the Americans to save the day again!", "God, I wish I was an American!". The rest of the time, though, it seems content to simply be a wacky slapstick comedy that gets its laughs from making prominent historical figures look a little ridiculous. Sometimes this works - I adored Neve Campbell's performance as Elizabeth, as well as her hilariously overdone accent... in fact she's probably the best part of the movie - but other times it doesn't, for example with Goering and Goebbels. It also has a habit of making its jokes too obvious at times, as if writer/director Peter Richardson was afraid that audiences wouldn't get it: it's not enough for Churchill's fellow GI, an African-American, to be relegated to the role of the stereotypical black comic relief character, he actually has to point this out to us.Nonetheless, it's a fun movie, although I suspect that it will go down better with British audiences than American viewers. Provided you're not expecting sophisticated comedy or subtlety of any kind I expect you'll have fun. 7/10
Reviewed by The_Void 5 / 10

Should have been good, but isn't

For a long time now, Hollywood have overblown things, messed with facts and just generally not been all that honest with what has made it to the screen.. You can imagine then, the producers of Churchill - The Hollywood Years sat around thinking of ways to play with this idea. Making a send-up of Hollywood by casting Christian Slater as William Churchill must have seemed like a grand idea, and after seeing the trailer I was very much all for it...but it's safe to say that the film has missed the mark, and all Churchill - The Hollywood Years really is, is a bottom drawer action spoof with very little in the way of redeeming features or funny ideas. The film basically has one running joke, which is never good for a film; but it's especially rubbish when you realise that this joke isn't even capitalised on to the extent that it could have been. The film seems to be happy to just rely on giggles rather than big laughs, and only about half of these giggles work; and only about a quarter of the ones that work garner any kind of substantial laugh factor. This film isn't exactly sidesplitting.One thing that definitely is to this movie's credit is the casting of Christian Slater in the lead role. Slater has made a lot of rubbish lately, and while this film isn't good; at least he's good in it. Slater gives Winston Churchill just the right essence of the standard 'American hero' and seeing him "kick butt" is always a pleasure. Well...it would be if the action sequences weren't so tacky. It's more local theatre than Hollywood. One miscasting is Neve Campbell as the queen of Britain. I'm a fan of Neve, and liked her a lot in the likes of 'Scream' and 'Wild Things', but here she just makes a fool of herself. Her British accent is stupid in the extreme and her performance isn't convincing at all. Like many British productions, this one has hired just about every British comedian going for various roles, and this doesn't do the film any favours in my opinion. Their caricatures are largely unfunny and it's obvious that they're only in the film so that they've got something to do. It's a huge shame that this film isn't very good as it could have been a nice little parody. Oh well.
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