A corpse is enlisted to deceive Hitler in a film whose first half is lacklustre but is rescued by a denouement that sparkles.
Image: Warner Brothers
Premise
Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen and Kelly Macdonald strive to persuade the Nazis that the Allies will land in Greece rather than Sicily by locating a corpse, stuffing it full of false documents and dumping it from a submarine along the Spanish coast to be found by the local authorities and thence on to Hitler. Meanwhile, love blossoms.
Opinion
In The Successity Blog’s opinion there are a number of critical things to be said about OPERATION MINCEMEAT.
The first is that, if the story were not based on fact and the operation in reality not been such a success, the story would be so fantastical and absurd that it would be unbelievable. And therein lies its main fascination.
The second is that the film is, to borrow a saying from football, a game of two halves.
The First half of the movie is too long and relies too much on the intended macabre storyline of the location and choosing of a corpse. John Madden, the director, presumably hoped that this line would be supported by a strong love-interest sub-plot. Sadly, however, the love plot is stale and predictable and nothing we haven’t seen before.
The hope was, I suspect, that the sub-plot would be supported by powerful dialogue laced with subtext between Colin Firth and Kelly Macdonald; but in fact in its attempt to replicate British wartime stiff-upper-lip attitudes it comes across on the whole as wooden and trite.
Half-way into the movie I was beginning to wonder why it was performing so well at the theatres; but things took a turn for the better when the muted, clichéd wartime cinematographic colours were usurped by brighter more contemporary hues, and the film began the story of what happened to the fake documents once the corpse was discovered by the Spanish. The pace of the film thankfully speeds up at this point, and heavily cloaked setups from earlier sections begin to pay off.
So, the more animated second half of the film rescues the first.
Ultimately, the film has a pleasing and satisfying dénouement, and I came away caring deeply about the outcomes for Firth and Macfadyen. The performances were excellent, if typically British; although (not Macfadyen’s fault) Macfadyen’s character was unevenly written. At one point he becomes – unbelievably – a right cynical swine which hadn’t been adequately signposted in his prior behaviours.
Since I had slightly higher expectations for this movie than I came away with and was disposed only to give it a three star rating, I double checked with the EMPIRE review to see what they gave it. Again, three stars, so my reticence was vindicated.
It’s well worth a watch, and it’s ending is sparkling and delightful. Just don’t expect the best British wartime movie you have ever seen.
Comments