"Darkest Hour" (2017)

A one man show. Gary Oldman plays Winston Churchill. The steak IS the entree.
Come watch dinner theater.
On the eve of Hitler pushing the Allies into certain doom, the drunk weirdo (cough...cough..resistance) is placed into power after citizens and Parliament has lost faith in Neville Chamberlain (the previous Prime Minister).
As a divisive drunk, cigar chain smoker...Churchill dictates his blustery speeches with some of the same emphasis as his opponent Adolph Hitler.
Not dwelling too much on the war itself, this was about how close the Allies were to losing the war, and some make believe moment where Churchill's flip of faith comes from the hands of...
...subway patrons?
In a "gimme a fucking break" moment...yes it's silly. But being that it is the precursor to a movie like "Dunkirk" (these could be watched side by side), it has a deep gravity to the stakes. When people in the 1940's spoke with such clipped language to make sure you knew they were serious.
Stubborn and forthright, you like to hate Churchill. History is a little kinder to him than I think the reality was. Which, by all rights, looked and acted like W.C. Fields. Oh wait...
"Darkest Hour" is a motivational speech bloated to 2 hours and sort of cheaply diminished by eye-candy scribe Elizabeth Layton (Lily James). In the war, she still looks...fresh.
Okay, so for actors, of course you are going to vote Gary Oldman the statue. Why? He embodies Churchill. Every lip quiver, yelling, snot inducing moment, he knows and feels the weight of the man. The speeches are corny (probably accurate). And there is an unflattering look at his counter-part FDR when their backs were truly against the wall.
Either way...it's a higher production set up than most of these period pieces obviously elevated by Gary Oldman's talent. It sickens me when people consider DiCaprio the embodiment of acting, when Oldman dances circles around him.
Is this an interesting movie otherwise? Ehhhh...it's a slog, but got a great history lesson here and there.