depesando Reviews

Fooling Hitler (2004 TV Movie)

almost an epic, but still worth watching.

[7/10 · 22 March 2006]

Essentially a very good and long overdue concept for a film / miniseries / drama-doc, but struggling to cope with an obviously pitiful budget and a truly awful script.

Most of the cast did their best - but seemed to be on day-release from otherwise more exciting projects, some of them trying too hard to make something of their highly compressed roles and mangled text - the Dennis Wheatly character tottering on the edge of hammy camp.

Its a really strong concept, how British ( and later American ) tech-bods came up with countless concepts to fool, be muddle and confuse the Germans on a shoestring budget - from thousands of plywood aircraft to draw fire away from real aerodromes - to exploding rats and dummy parachutists, its examines the triumph of imagination and creativity over brute force, many of the ideas were original and intriguing - with plenty of humour and human interest, but it was handicapped by an obviously small budget and really small scale direction, in parts it came across as a dramatised educational program from the late '70's.

You never know - perhaps someone with deeper pockets will see this and realise that the foundation of a very good film is in here - after all -' someone' thought Enigma was a good idea, and as 'Downfall' has shown us, you can produce an astonishing quality war film based in the confines of a bunker - so why not one with the 'Back-room-boys'?

Our Hidden Lives (2005 TV Movie)

Fascinating and beautifully acted docu-drama

[10/10 · 8 January 2006]

Imaginative production intertwining and examining the 'hidden' daily lives of three 'ordinary' people in post war Britain, touching on homosexuality, single women making their way in life post-war and a housewife handling the less than welcome return of her husband. Not an east thing to watch sometimes, and quite moving in parts, its an excellent piece of social history taken from the post war Mass-Observation studies that documented peoples daily lives in honest detail. Sarah Parish is particularly good, portraying an intelligent but frustrated young woman who has made her own life for herself but has to make way for the men returning from war - I was very impressed by the way even her physical movements and the way she sat and walked was perfect for the period. A very good piece of work all round.

The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005)

whoops, apocalypse.

[1/10 · 11 June 2005]

very disappointing and incoherent - every now and then a germ of an idea would develop and be discarded in the next line - it had the feel of a film that had been cut and re-cut to try and make it work - I was bored and distracted all the way through, and I'm speaking as a huge fan of the series. Many of the jokes were unoriginal and tired, The medieval section went on far too long and the quality of acting was very poor - some on the tiny guest spots, like Simon Peg and Liam Cunningham did more in their alloted 30 secs than the main cast did in 90 Min's.

It's a shame, really.

The only really interesting thing was getting a look inside the little shed on Soho Square - which is something everyone who is ever in that part of London wonders about.