大象传媒

A heavy-going spoof with one joke that's stretched to snapping point, Churchill: The Hollywood Years should have been a sketch on late-night TV. It's a deliberately crass, blockbuster-style take on our illustrious wartime Prime Minister, with the studio deciding the real Winston was "too fat, too old and too English." So we get Christian Slater as Churchill the marine, triumphing over 'Allo 'Allo Nazis and wooing Queen Elizabeth (a game Neve Campbell).

The target is soft: Hollywood's tradition of rewriting UK history, from casting Americans as saviours in Errol Flynn actioner Objective, Burma! (when it was a British operation), to the misleading submarine drama U-571, which showed Americans capturing the war-winning Enigma machine, when it was a British... You get the picture.

"SIMPLY A BAD MOVIE"

A look behind the scenes at the making of such a movie might have been really funny what with dumb executives, a brash director and earnest, in-character actors. Sadly, Peter Richardson (director of TV's Stella Street) suffers the fate of many satirists; in trying to mock bad movies, he's simply made a bad movie. It hasn't the wit, insight or skill to tweak and undermine Hollywood cliches, settling instead for recreating them with a broad wink to camera that says: "Yanks, eh? Aren't they daft?" After five minutes the viewer may be replying, "Is that all you've got?" and eyeing the exit.

Saving proceedings from being completely unbearable is Harry Enfield, playing King George as a tight-fisted, dopey Charles-alike. It's the film's best character, executed with fine timing, and certainly beats the gross Nazi leader Goering bellowing, "We are the master race. We can do what the **** we like." Subtle this satire most definitely isn't.