OPERATION MINCEMEAT : Tuesday 17th May 2022.

I saw 'OPERATION MINCEMEAT' at my local multiplex earlier this week and this M Rated British WWII drama film is Directed by John Madden whose previous film making credits include 'Mrs. Brown' in 1997, 'Shakespeare in Love' in 1998, 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' in 2001, 'Proof' in 2005, 'The Debt' in 2010, and 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' in 2012 and its sequel 'The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' in 2015. This film is based on the book 'Operation Mincemeat : The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II' by Ben Macintyre. This is the second feature film about the operation, following the 1956 film 'The Man Who Never Was' based on Ewen Montagu's book of the same name. This film saw its World Premier screening at the British Film Festival in Australia in November 2021 before its release in the UK in mid-April, and in the US (on Netflix) and here in Australia from last week, has so far grossed US$10.5M and has garnered generally favourable reviews. 

In April 1943 the UK is deeply rooted in WWII. Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) remains in England while his wife Iris (Hattie Morahan) and their two children leave for the relative safety of the United States. Ewen is a Jewish lawyer who is fearful that if they remain and Germany gains the upper hand and invades England, then his family will be persecuted. He elects however, to stay when he is appointed to the Twenty Committee (a WWII counter espionage and deception organisation of the British Security Service). His trusted secretary and good friend of Iris, Hester Leggett (Penelope Wilton) sticks by him.

Meanwhile, Winston Churchill (Simon Russell Beale) has made a commitment to the United States that her Allies will invade Sicily by July of that year in order to push northward through Italy and onward into Europe. Sicily though is considered an obvious target and is likely to be heavily defended by the German united armed forces. Admiral John Godfrey (Jason Issacs) informs the Twenty Committee that Britain must trick Nazi Germany into believing the Allies will invade Greece and Sardinia. Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) proposes an operation from the Trout Memo (a document comparing deception of an enemy in wartime with fly fishing), which would involve a corpse carrying false secrets and washing ashore. Despite Godfrey's serious reservations, he gives Montagu and Cholmondeley permission to plan the operation with Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn).

The team set up an office under the name of Operation Mincemeat. As planning progresses Montagu and Cholmondeley finally obtain the body of a vagrant named Glyndwr Michael (Lorne MacFadyen), who died by suicidal poisoning. Bentley Purchase (Paul Ritter) was the physician who sourced the body of Michael, and helped preserve and prepare the corpse for the rouse. The team gives Michael the fake identity of Major William Martin, complete with a very detailed backstory, ID photos, and an engagement. A widowed secretary in the office, Jean Leslie (Kelly Macdonald), offers a photo of herself to serve as the fake fiancee under the name of Pam. Cholmondeley has a crush on Jean, but soon comes to realise that Montagu and Jean share a romantic connection which results in Cholmondeley becoming jealous and lashing out from time to time at Montagu.

Godfrey suspects that Montagu's younger brother, Ivor (Mark Gatiss), is in fact a Russian spy. He coerces Cholmondeley to spy on Montagu and, in return for which, Godfrey will locate and return the remains of Cholmondeley's brother, who was killed in action in Chittagong, Bengal. Cholmondeley reluctantly agrees.

A specialist MI5 driver is chosen to transport Montagu, Cholmondeley, and the corpse to the R.N. Submarine Base in Holy Loch, Scotland. The corpse is then loaded onto the submarine HMS Seraph. In the early hours of 30th April, the Seraph arrives in the Gulf of Cadiz and drops the corpse into the sea. It is later washed ashore and found by fishermen in Huelva, Spain. Operation Mincemeat attempt to get the fake documents to Madrid. The mission is however, hampered by bad luck, as the Spanish have resisted Nazi corruption better than anticipated. Captain David Ainsworth (Nicholas Rowe), the British naval attache in Madrid, meets with Colonel Cerruti of the Spanish Secret Police in one last attempt to land the papers in the hands of the Nazis. When Martin's personal items and the secret letters are eventually returned to London supposedly intact, a specialist at Q Branch figures out that the documents were indeed tampered with. This gives Montagu, Cholmondeley and the team hope that Germany retrieved the fake information.

Jean is ambushed in her own home at night and threatened by a man claiming to be a spy for an anti-Hitler plot within Germany. She tells him that Major Martin was traveling under an alias but the classified information was real. After he leaves, Jean informs Montagu and Cholmondeley. They come to believe that Colonel Alexis von Roenne (Nico Birnbaum), who controls intelligence in the Nazi High Command, sent the man to verify information so Von Roenne could undermine Hitler. However, they have no way of being completely sure. Montagu takes Jean to his home for protection much to Cholmondeley's chagrin, but shortly afterwards she accepts a job in Special Operations and leaves London.

On 10th July, the invasion of Sicily commences along the beach heads of the south-west and south. The news arrives that the Allied Forces suffered only limited casualties, the enemy is retreating, and the beaches have been held. They receive a message from Churchill soon afterwards saying 'Mincemeat swallowed. Rod, line and sinker'. 

Early the next morning, while sat outside on the steps beside the Duke of York Monument just off The Mall, Cholmondeley admits to Montagu that he received his brother's remains in return for spying on him. Feeling sympathetic and relieved that Operation Mincemeat was a success, Montagu offers to buy Cholmondeley a drink even though it's only 8:00 o'clock in the morning.

Before the end credits role, the closing epilogue states that Operation Mincemeat saved potentially thousands of lives, Montagu reunited with Iris after the war and remained happily married until his death in 1985, Jean married a soldier, Hester continued as Director of the Admiralty Secretarial Unit, and Cholmondeley remained with MI5 until 1952, later married, and traveled widely. Major William Martin's identity was revealed to be Glyndwr Michael in 1997 when an epitaph, with his real name, was added to Martin's headstone in Spain.

'Operation Mincemeat' is a solid enough WWII drama that moves along at a steady pace, has some stoic stiff upper lip performances from Firth, Macfadyen and Isaacs especially, and the production values setting the look and feel of early 1940's London is spot on. For a period piece centred firmly on espionage, intrigue, subterfuge and oneupmanship this films ticks all of those boxes, but is let down by the romantic triangle that Montagu, Cholmondeley and Jean Leslie find themselves in and from which no one comes out the victor. It is interesting to see all the early nods to James Bond as penned by Flynn's Ian Fleming, including Q Branch, M and a wrist watch with a built in buzz saw, and it was he who, after all, came up with the plan to stash a corpse full of 'top secret intelligence' to foil the Germans into thinking one thing while the Allies were doing something completely different - a stroke of genius that could have been lifted straight from one of his novels. Certainly worth the price of your cinema ticket, made all the more worthwhile knowing that this film is based on an extraordinary true story of deception and those unknown soldiers left at home to fight another kind of war from the shadows, but who nonetheless contributed to such a remarkable outcome to the war effort.

'Operation Mincemeat' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

T2 : TRAINSPOTTING : Tuesday 28th February 2017.

'T2 : TRAINSPOTTING' which I saw last week has been in gestation for eight years now. In early 2009 Danny Boyle made it known that he wanted to film a follow up to his 1996 cult classic 'Trainspotting', based on the Irvine Welsh follow up novel 'Porno' and set nine years after that original film. At that time Ewan McGregor was already keen. In the ensuing years Boyle always kept his follow up film on the back burner as other projects took hold, but in 2014 it was confirmed that Welsh and Boyle had spent a week together discussing script options that would do justice to the 1996 film, and the following year it was reported that 'Trainspotting 2' would be released to coincide with the 20th anniversary of that first film in 2016. Released in the UK in late January 2017, Directed and Co-Produced by Danny Boyle, reuniting the original cast of Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller and Kelly Macdonald and costing US$18M the film has so far made US$26M, and has received generally positive Reviews. By comparison, the highly acclaimed 'Trainspotting' back in 1996 cost US$2.25M to make and it grossed at the Box Office US$72M.

The film opens up with Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) pounding a treadmill at his local gym, in a world of his own, running at a pace to stand still, when suddenly the treadmill runs away from him flinging him backwards into a wall behind. He lies their motionless, while other gym junkies come to his aid. We then fast forward a few months and we see Mark arriving back home in Edinburgh from Amsterdam - the place he has called home for the past twenty years. His first stop off is to say hello to his Dad (James Cosmo) now living alone since his wife and Mark's mother died, in the same house where Mark grew up. He goes up to his bedroom which has remained unchanged since he left - complete with train locomotive wallpaper.

After this, Mark looks up Daniel 'Spud' Murphy (Ewen Bremner) who is estranged from his wife Gail and nine year old son Fergus, and living in a beat up tower block, with no job and begging on the street for loose change. He is still a heroin addict and living with the legacy of a lifelong habit, and is suicidal. He pens a note to Gail and Fergus bidding them farewell. He envisions himself falling off the tower block roof where he lives, but instead attempts self-asphyxiation by taping a plastic bag around his head. He is rescued just in the nick of time by Mark who tracks down Spud and busts the door down to pull the bag from his face. At first Spud is angry at Mark for foiling his suicide attempt, but then Mark explains that he wants to help Spud kick his habit, clean up his thinking, and help him reconcile with Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson (Jonny Lee Miller).

Simon is the owner of The Port Sunshine Pub left to him by his now deceased Aunty. It's a dive of a pub, with next to no customers in the very run down arse end of the city. When he's not pulling a few pints for the few regular customers he does have, he's snorting cocaine and blackmailing well to do types by filming them secretly while engaged in all manner of sexual acts with his girlfriend Veronika Kovach (Anjela Nedyalkova). When Mark walks into the Pub he is greeted by Simon who asks nonchalantly 'so what have you been unto for twenty years?' They exchange social niceties but there is tension between them - Simon still having not forgiven Mark for betraying him out of £4,000 all those years ago. Simon's anger quickly erupts resulting in a full on brawl inside the pub with the fighting duo using snooker cues, beer bottles, chairs and other sundry items to beat each other senseless. When Mark comes round have been knocked out by Simon, he hands Simon a package containing £4,000 in cash - the proceeds of the drug deal that Mark stole way back when. We later see Simon discussing with Veronika how he intends to inflict emotional and physical pain on Mark for betraying him two decades earlier and how he has never forgiven him despite the four grand in his hand right now.

Meanwhile Francis 'Franco' Begbie (Robert Carlyle) is serving 25 years jail time and has just had his parole appeal declined for another five years. He hatches a plan to escape from jail by having a fellow inmate stab him below the ribs with a large knitting needle, in order that he can be hospitalised. The stabbing does not go according to plan resulting in a punctured lung, not life threatening, but enough to have Begbie carted off to hospital, from where he successfully does escape. Begbie visits Simon at Port Sunshine, and Begbie is still also bitter about being double crossed by Mark earlier and is out for revenge. Simon pretends to collaborate with Begbie saying that he knows of Mark's whereabouts in Amsterdam, not letting him know that he is in fact in Edinburgh, and saying that Begbie should in fact lie low for a while pending further intelligence from Simon's source in Amsterdam. Meanwhile Begbie begins burgling houses to raise some cash, coercing his son Frank Jnr. to accompany him as a 'chip off the old block' despite Frank Jnr. having enrolled at Hotel Management College. While selling off the proceeds of his house burgling activities to a known 'businessman' Begbie stumbles across fridges wrapped up in cling film on several pallets. He breaks inside one such fridge to reveal  bags containing thousands of Viagra tablets and more boxes of the same. He takes a box for his own personal use, because he has been experiencing some difficulties in that department since reuniting with his wife.

In the meantime, Mark takes Spud for a run up to Arthur's Seat overlooking Edinburgh telling him that he should simply swap his drug addiction for another addiction, such as exercise, or boxing, or whatever else he is good at, or interested in. Spud takes this on board and starts writing his memoirs of the exploits of the of four them twenty years ago. Later Mark, Simon and Veronika visit Glasgow with the purposes of stealing the bank cards of the gathered patrons at the Orange Lodge and do so big time while the gathered crowd are pre-occupied with live entertainment and their backs are turned on the cloakroom . . . and their wallets.

Simon and Mark also hatch a plan to gain government funding for start up businesses in distressed areas. They make a formal presentation to several gathered officials at the Scottish Parliament Building on the pretext that The Port Sunshine Pub is to be made in to a boutique hostel by restoring it to its famous landmark and destination heritage, rather than the run down dive bar that it is today. Rather they want to turn it into a Veronika's 'leisure club' featuring sauna's and happy endings. When the funding of £100,000 is duly granted they begin work on the upstairs conversion, with Spud spearheading the demolition and building works using various dodgy contractors that he is able to mobilise.

Going out to celebrate their good fortune Mark and Simon go to a nightclub. Unknown to them, and armed with his box of Viagra tablets, so does Begbie. Mark excuses himself to take a leak, and meanwhile Begbie thinks he has scored and excuses himself too to visit the toilet to down another Viagra tablet. The two end up in cubicles next to each other, but don't know it. Begbie fumbles with a packet and drops it. As it rolls under the cubicle Mark picks it up and the two have an exchange of words. At first they don't recognise each others voices, but then it dawns on them simultaneously. What ensues is a foot chase out of the club, through the back streets and alleyways of Edinburgh and into a multi-storey car park, with Mark making a close call getaway on the top of a 4WD.

Begbie then visits Spud to ascertain where Mark is hiding. Begbie comes across Spuds writings about their history together. Coincidentally, Veronika visits Spud at the same time, and Begbie puts two and two together and adds the girl to the jigsaw puzzle. Using Veronika's mobile phone he texts Mark and sets up a time to meet, at midnight, at The Port Sunshine. Veronika and Spud manage to elude Begbie giving Spud just enough time to forewarn Mark and Simon at the Pub of Begbie's intentions. Begbie arrives and is greeted by Mark, Simon and Spud. A fight breaks out, Simon is knocked out and Mark is chased upstairs to the partially refurbished 'leisure club'. Mark hides in one of the unfinished saunas but is overcome by Begbie, eventually falling through a roof space and left dangling by his neck entwined in exposed wires and slowing choking to death. As Begbie watches on with a smile on his face, he is knocked unconscious from behind by Spud using a toilet bowl.

Simon, Mark and Spud load the unconscious Begbie into the boot of Simon's car and drive him back to the prison from whence he escaped, leaving him there to be discovered by Prison Guards. Veronika has made off back to her home in Bulgaria with the £100,000 grant by using Spuds forgery skills that he learned whilst in prison to forge the bank transfer papers assigning these monies from Simon's account to her own. Simon has reconciled his differences with Mark, Spud gets serious about Writing and his musings form the basis of a book, and Mark moves back into the home of his upbringing with his Dad following the collapse of his marriage back in Amsterdam.

It's good to see Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie and Spud back on the big screen, reunited and doing what they do best after twenty years. Danny Boyle has crafted a solid film that pays homage to the first instalment through similar themes and flashbacks to those earlier heady days, and beyond, to the boys individual childhoods and what made them. The film is creative in its plot lines, it is well played out by the principle characters although Begbie's role is the strongest as the hard nosed unpredictable opinionated tough guy who drops the 'C' word at every opportunity, and Spud's the least formed as the would-be storyteller. In the middle are Mark and Simon - long term best friends divided by an act of betrayal who come good in the end but not before treading some shifting sands beneath their feet. There is a thumping soundtrack featuring classic '80's and '90's tunes mixed in with more recent rhythms, but is all this enough to put this follow up on a par with the original. For me, not, but it is certainly worth the price of your ticket. Maybe age, the passing of time and the different era has wearied them just a little too much to make the post-Thatcher years and the '90's cultural explosion that trademarked the first film seem like a distant, if glorious, memory.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-