{"id":7119,"date":"2010-06-20T15:19:34","date_gmt":"2010-06-20T15:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=7119"},"modified":"2015-04-14T15:32:44","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T15:32:44","slug":"edinburgh-film-review-jackboots-on-whitehall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=7119","title":{"rendered":"EDINBURGH FILM REVIEW: ‘Jackboots on Whitehall’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jackboots<\/a>By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

EDINBURGH \u2013 Some top UK stars, including Ewan McGregor, Alan Cumming, Tom Wilkinson and Rosamund Pike, lend their voices to the characters in \u201cJackboots on Whitehall,\u201d a puppet animation comedy in the spirit of \u201cTeam America\u201d but very British in its humor and cockeyed take on World War II.<\/p>\n

Brothers Edward and Rory McHenry wrote and directed the spoof, which sees a group of farmers from Kent save Winston Churchill and take him to a mysterious but impregnable haven known as Scot Land after Germany invades Britain in 1940.<\/p>\n

The glassy-eyed puppets \u2013 spins on traditional English war film stereotypes with some very camp Nazi leaders \u2013 soon take on personalities of their own. The script is filled with puns, one-liners and movie references from \u201cIce Cold in Alex\u201d to \u201cZulu\u201d to \u201cIndependence Day\u201d that will please audiences with a taste for pythonic or goonish comedy. With insults for everyone and a rousing, if subversive payoff, the production should turn a merry coin.<\/p>\n

\"Jackboots<\/a>In swift but effective brushstrokes, the McHenrys show Dunkirk as a disaster and the Battle of Britain as a defeat. The Nazis devise a scheme to tunnel beneath the English Channel and send German tanks to crunch along the London Underground\u2019s Northern Line to emerge in Trafalgar Square.<\/p>\n

Soon, swastikas adorn Buckingham Palace, the Ritz Caf\u00e9 becomes the Fritz Caf\u00e9, and an attack is launched on No. 10 Downing Street where Churchill (Timothy Spall) bemoans the loss of the entire British Army save for his trusty Indian Corps.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in rural Kent, a stalwart lad named Chris (McGregor) curses the fate that left him with hands so large the army says he is unfit for duty. With sweetheart Daisy (Pike), her vicar father (Richard E. Grant), and U.S. flier Billy Fiske (Dominic West) who thinks he\u2019s fighting \u201cthe Ruskies,\u201d he rouses the locals. They fire up an old steam engine to drive to London to rescue Churchill.<\/p>\n

While Hitler (Cumming) swans about Buckingham Palace in a Queen Elizabeth I gown plotting with hilariously caricatured Himmler (Richard O\u2019Brien), Goebbels (Tom Wilkinson) and Goering (Richard Griffiths), Churchill leads his valiant band to the safety of Hadrian\u2019s Wall. There, Chris meets a blue-faced creature named Braveheart (also Cumming), who has an Australian accent and some lethal weapons, and convinces him to help fight the Nazi horde.<\/p>\n

Slick editing keeps the puppets from becoming static and the stars\u2019 voices add greatly to the fun with Grant a standout as the foul-mouthed vicar. Supervising sound editor Mark Taylor and his team make all the mechanical noises, and the bangs, crashes and wallops utterly credible, and that sturdy base makes the silliness even more enjoyable.<\/p>\n

Venue: Edinburgh International Film Festival; Cast: Ewan McGregor, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Timothy Spall, Tom Wilkinson, Alan Cumming, Dominic West; Directors: Edward McHenry, Rory McHenry; Screenwriters: Edward McHenry, Rory McHenry; Director of Photography: Michael Connor; Production designer: David McHenry; Music: Guy Michelmore; Editor: Chris Blunden; Producer: Patrick Scoffin; Production: Entertainment Motion Pictures; Sales: Media 8 Entertainment; Not rated; running time, 78 minutes.<\/p>\n

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett EDINBURGH \u2013 Some top UK stars, including Ewan McGregor, Alan Cumming, Tom Wilkinson and Rosamund Pike, lend their voices to the characters in \u201cJackboots on Whitehall,\u201d a puppet animation comedy in the spirit of \u201cTeam America\u201d but … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3065,5,14],"tags":[3466,1387,3469,3467,571,1895,1019,3470,3468,1307,2044,1183],"class_list":["post-7119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edinburgh-international-film-festival","category-film","category-reviews","tag-jackboots-on-whitehall","tag-alan-cumming","tag-dominic-west","tag-edward-mchenry","tag-ewan-mcgregor","tag-richard-e-grant","tag-richard-griffiths","tag-richard-obrien","tag-rory-mchenry","tag-rosamund-pike","tag-timothy-spall","tag-tom-wilkinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7119"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7123,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7119\/revisions\/7123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}