How I Won the War

Dated, maybe, but Lester's gruesomely black anti-war comedy still looks inventive, and manages occasionally to hit home with its blend of surreal lunacy and barbed satire. Concerning the futile mission of a troop of British soldiers in Egypt during World War II, sent behind enemy lines to set up a cricket pitch to impress a visiting VIP, Charles Wood's script, which attacks war movie conventions as much as war itself, is not always well served by Lester's determinedly zany direction; but the performances are well attuned to the single-minded mood of brash bitterness.