Reviews

This is a charmingly, innocent movie, much as Britiain was in the 50's, and doesn't exist in the Tory Britian if today.

Lesley Manville plays it to perfection, every dropped 'aitch' is within her character. I am probably a little biased towards Ms Manville, as I fell in love with her when I was 13 and she was in the kids series 'A Bunch of Fives'.

It is a lovely film, an excellent cast and the fantastic set designs.

Up The Workers.

We loved this series, it was very funny and with built in empathy.

The writing was excellent as was the acting, couldn't fault it.

Sadly the BBC have chosen not to make another series, no doubt putting more money into the useless ego fest for Lee Mack, Not Going Out. Shame on the Beeb, Scarborough would have run for many many years.

Sadly, I did not enjoy this film at all. The actors had more rigor mortis than the corpse used in the actual deception!

The actors all tried, too hard, I most cases to be British Officers, but they fell down at every turn.

Sad to say, but I don't think we have the acting talent to carry this off. It needed Jack Hawkins, Richard Todd, John Mills etc, people who had actually been in a war and not just watched one on the news and imagined this is how British Officers acted in the war.

I am very disappointed in the film, it was a ludicrous plan, and they should have played it for laughs not high drama. It has too much dialogue, and at 2 hours plus running time it is 40 minutes too long.

The trilogy of these films are only suitable for imbeciles, the acting is dreadful and as for the writing, a Lobotomised monkey would have written better.

Avoid these at all costs, shame on the Canadians that inflicted this drivel on the world, I thought they were nice people!

I am enjoying the series, but it lacks any tension, I don't know anything about the other work of the all Director's involved in this series, but they have all failed it; as we go into one disaster after another without any build up, or surprise! It's too pedestrian, should have been cut to 2 or 3 episodes, it would have helped the pace of the show and maybe injected the tension. In the original film there were scenes where Palmer was doing nothing but because the camera was shooting through a broken window, a phone box window or above above a door on Palmer's landing etc, it gave the impression that someone was always watching him, creating a tension that had no actual bearing on the story and came to nothing, but it worked because we gave a huge sigh of relief in the end.

I appreciate they tried to show Joe Cole's version of Palmer as a bit of a lad, do anything to earn a buck, but the lad is totally miscast for the role, with those dark rimmed glasses he reminds me of a young Joe 90.

The designers have done a great job on evoking 60's London, but Berlin leaves a lot to be desired. I went to the city in 1995, and even then both East and West Berlin were extremely oppressive places, so Berlin in the 60's would have been terrifying and not easy to move around in.

For all my criticism, I'll continue to watch as I enjoy a good spy yarn, and it's good that the producers decided to create something using the characters from the novel, and not just churn out the novel or films.

More formulaic tripe marketed as original drama!

With the exception of Aidan McArdle, I don't know any of the other actors, but I do know they are entitled to better material than this.

It used to be that actors would ask the Directior, 'what is my motivation', in cases like The Holiday they should ask, 'What is the point?'

Terrible production values, and ridiculous casting!

The dogs size fluctuated between scenes, and the CGI itself was at best inept!

But my biggest gripe with this film was the casting of Jack Whitehall, what the hell do people see in this man/child? He can't act, and despite his CV, he is not funny, and oh yeah, Hollywood, he's not American and he can't do a convincing Anerican accent! The professional actors must have been asking the same questions as me!

Casting Directors; Whitehall makes interesting projects unwatchable. Forget him so he can get the job he is only suitable for; cleaning the toilets in the Tottenham Court Road Macdonald's!

The multicultural cast come together for another laugh fest at social mores.

I loved this as much as the original film. The sons-in-law are brilliant, made all the better that they were able to get the who cast back for this.

The film doesn't preach, but it does try to show the ludicrous and crass side of a lot of France, which, for a multicultural country is still, surprisingly, very racist, and this film ridicules them by using comedy to highlight this, hopefully the the rest of the world can understand this too, and there is the homophobic African father too to laugh at when he discovers his daughter is getting married. Fair play to all involved.

And finally, I love Claudes patriotism, he knows there are problems, but he tries to embrace them, he went around the world and came back still believing in France. I wish I could feel the same about Britain, but the fact is, whilst we have a Tory self serving Government any patriotism I felt for the country died a long time ago.

This is a wonderful satire, all the actors enjoy themselves thoroughly throughout the film, and they are such accomplished actors they all underplayed their role. A special mention for the actor who plays the Priest, his nervous reaction when he is told of the wedding is hilarious.

Only redeeming factor is the 60's soundtrack. The two.lead actresses put in excellent perfomances, the Male lead Matt Smith is totally miscast and a laughable choice, whoever advised him to go into acting should be shot! I feel sorry for Terence Stamp, when is somebody going to write this man a role worthy of his amazing talents, he is so watchable but he is never given the role he deserves. And it's a sad epitaph to Dame Diana Rigg too.

Forget the Director, not sure what the fuss is about the guy, however, the editor on this film does a fantastic job, especially with the mediocre drivel that was shot. And you can't knock the set designers and locations used in the film, those guys earned their money!

This is a brilliant feel good movie fantastically acted by all involved, and wow did I fall in love with the stunning Gale Storm, an actress i am actually unfamiliar with.

Of course there is the usual formulaic elements here, what we commonly refer to as Capraesque, but who cares it's just a great little movie everyone can watch, just need the Tories to watch it, it might actually give them an idea of how to solve the UK affordable housing shortage!