Churchill: The Hollywood Years

This in-time-for-Xmas turkey is down there at the rank end of recent big-screen British comedies. It’s a return to the ’80s for ‘Comic Strip’ co-creator Richardson who posits an alternate world-view in which Churchill wasn’t the cigar-chomping PM that history recorded but a gun-toting, rapping GI (Christian Slater) who saved us Brits from the nefarious clutches of Da Fuhrer (Anthony Sher) – here a guest of Harry Enfield’s dim-witted King George at Buck House – and got it on with Princess Elizabeth (Neve Campbell) to boot. Neither the script nor the mainly retro-comedic cast – including Vic and Bob as mincing Palace footmen (!) – muster much that could legitimately be described as funny. The scant few genuine laughs come courtesy of bloopers and outtakes, although Phil Cornwell’s Leytonstone-born SS officer does raise a chuckle or two. Poor.