THE DUKE : Monday 2nd May 2022.

I saw the M Rated British comedy drama film 'THE DUKE' earlier this week, which is Directed by the late Roger Michell who died in late September last year, and whose previous film making credits took in 'Notting Hill' in 1999, 'Changing Lanes' in 2002, 'Venus' in 2006, 'Hyde Park on Hudson' in 2012, 'Le Week-end' in 2013, 'My Cousin Rachel' in 2017, 'Blackbird' in 2019 and the recently released documentary on the life of Queen Elizabeth II 'Elizabeth : A Portrait in Part(s)'. The film saw its World Premier screening at the September 2020 Venice Film Festival and was originally slated for an early November 2020 release in the UK before being pulled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. It was then scheduled to an early September 2021 release before being pushed back again to a late February date in 2022 in the UK and a 31st March date here in Australia. It has so far taken US$11M at the Box Office and garnered positive critical acclaim. 

The film opens up with Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) standing in the dock in an Old Bailey courtroom accused of stealing the famed portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Francisco Goya, and its frame from London's National Gallery in 1961. He pleads not guilty. We then back track six months to the spring of 1961 and from his home in Newcastle upon Tyne Kempton sends a script for a play he has written to the BBC. Following this the Television licensing authorities knock on Kempton's door demanding to see his TV license. Kempton responds saying that he has removed the tube from the back of the TV set which transmits the BBC signal, and as he is unable to watch the BBC he does not need a license. Although he can afford a TV license, he refuses to do so as part of his campaign against old age pensioners having to pay for it, which is all part of his wider strong socialist beliefs about supporting the common man.

He is then jailed for thirteen days in Durham, and upon his release he is collected by his son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead). On their way home they make a detour to visit the grave of Marion, Jackie's sister, who was killed in a bicycle accident aged only eighteen. Kempton's wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren) works as a housekeeper and babysitter for a local councillor and his wife (Anna Maxwell Martin), Jackie aims to become a boat builder and move away to California, or New Zealand or Australia, and his elder brother Kenny (Jack Bandeira) lives in Leeds, working in construction but also involved in petty crime. Kempton himself is sacked from his job as a taxi driver for being over-talkative to passengers and for giving a free ride to an impoverished disabled WWI veteran. Dorothy is sick and tired of her husbands relentless campaigning and crusades for the common man, but she reluctantly allows his to make one last trip down to London for two days to drum up press and parliamentary attention for his campaign and BBC interest in his scripts, on the condition that if he does not get that attention he will give up writing and campaigning and get a real job.

Next up we see an unseen man climbing up a ladder and entering the National Gallery via a toilet block. He sneaks around the dimly lit corridors in the dead of night, and promptly removes the painting of the Duke of Wellington. When Kempton returns from London to his home, he is seen bending over the portrait saying 'it's not very good, is it?' to Jackie. He and Jackie then make a false back to the wardrobe in which to hide the portrait from Dorothy and Kenny. Kempton then sends a number of ransom notes to the government, proclaiming that he'll return the painting on the condition that the elderly be exempted from paying for a TV licence. 

Kenny and his separated lover Pammy (Charlotte Spencer) come to visit his parents and she notices the painting in the wardrobe after snooping around. She reveals this to Kempton in private and threatens to blackmail him unless she gets half of the £5,000 reward on offer. Panicked, Kempton goes home and begins to wrap up the painting in brown paper when in walks Dorothy to the room. She is perplexed and angry at Kempton for stealing the portrait and lying to her and orders him out of the house. Kempton then walks into the National Gallery in the middle of the day and returns the painting to the nearest security guard and confesses to the theft.

The case against Kempton seems destined to go against him, but his barrister Jeremy Hutchinson (Matthew Goode) defends him on the basis that he did not intend to deprive the National Gallery of it permanently, but instead simply 'borrowed' it to further his campaign, an impression Kempton backs up by a verbose testimony under cross-examination by Hutchinson at the end of the trial, and which causes much hilarity amongst the jurists, the other barristers in attendance and the members of the public gathered in the gallery up above looking on.

During the early stages of the trial, which is widely reported on the TV news, Jackie confesses to his mother that it had in fact been him who stole it for his father to use in his campaign, with his father covering up for him and taking the blame. Soon afterwards the jury acquits Kempton of all charges except the theft of the £80 picture frame, which Jackie had removed from the painting at his London lodgings, placed under his bed, forgot about it and then subsequently lost. After his three-month sentence, Dorothy is waiting for Kempton outside the gates of Durham Prison. He and Dorothy forgive each other over how they had mishandled their grief at Marion's death, after she read his draft of a play he had written titled 'Girl on a Bicycle'. 

Four years later Jackie admits his guilt to the Police, but the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police Joe Simpson (Charles Edwards) and the Director of Public Prosecutions fear that a new trial could lead to Kempton being called as a witness and again becoming an embarrassing case of widespread public interest. They therefore agree that if Jackie does not go public they will not prosecute. Jackie elated by this news, on the spot proposes to his long term girlfriend Irene (Aimee Kelly) who accepts instantly. 

Before the end credits roll, text states that the frame was never recovered, that no plays by Bunton were ever produced, and that in 2000 TV licences were made free to those over 75 years of age.

In his final feature film outing here Director Roger Michell has crafted a fine retelling of the only art theft in the National Gallery's history that is underpinned by exemplary performances by its two lead Actors - Broadbent and Mirren. Make no mistake this is a typically British story that only the Brits can make and that Hollywood has long since forgotten how to make. It's a tale of the little man rising up against a society that would otherwise crush him, of racial prejudice, of social inequality, of marital woes, of lies and deceit, but one that offers up hope, redemption and forgiveness. It's a feel good family movie, a real crowd pleaser and a throw back to the Ealing comedies of yesteryear, and there ain't nothing wrong with that!

'The Duke' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-