7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A British film crew attempts to boost morale during World War II by making a propaganda film after the Blitzkrieg.
Starring: Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Jack Huston, Helen McCroryWar | Insignificant |
Period | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
We like to think of people like Joseph Goebbels as being the chief propagandists of the Second World War, churning out material to brainwash his nation’s people (and the people they had conquered). There’s no denying that other countries also had their own propaganda units, including of course in the film industry. There are actually two kinds of movies that sprang from the United States that could be classified as propaganda, the fictional films that sought to either shock (Hitler's Children, Confessions of a Nazi Spy) or inspire (Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, the second of which proves that efforts to “persuade” folks continued after the war had ended), and the documentary efforts like Why We Fight and Let There Be Light: John Huston's Wartime Documentaries. Britain had its own “forces” in this wartime cinematic fray, and those are the center of the charming and sometimes slyly humorous Their Finest. While the film might be faulted for combining comedy and tragedy in too sanguine a manner, it ably shows the pluck that got the Brits through the Blitz, all within the context of a ragtag troupe of movie makers who were seeking to buck up the spirits of the English in order to help them all “keep calm and carry on”.
Their Finest is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Online data suggests the Arri Alexa was used, though Panavision lists a PF model that I'm not that familiar with. One way or the other, this is a typically glossy and well detailed looking presentation, though one that suffers from occasional "digital murk" in darker environments. A lot of the film has been beautifully lit or graded toward honey yellow, amber and slight sepia tones, all of which tend to evoke the film's historical epoch rather well. Some location photography offers absolutely ravishing views of the British countryside (see screenshot 3). While intentionally tamped down quite a bit of the time, the palette resonates well and is well saturated if not especially vivid. Several "films with a film" intrude at various moments, all in black and white (though in completely inappropriate wide aspect ratios), and those elements look decently sharp if not especially traditionally "filmic".
Their Finest sports an occasionally bombastic DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that provides considerable low end and excellent immersion in admittedly brief sequences like the one where Catrin gets caught outside in a bombing raid. While less showy than that moment, the rest of the track provides continual surround activity, ably documenting the cramped tube quarters Londoners huddled in during air raids, or, in some later sequences, the gorgeous windswept dunes of the English seaside. Dialogue, effects and score are all rendered cleanly and clearly with no problems whatsoever.
Their Finest encounters occasional stumbles in focus and tone, wobbling a bit uneasily between winking comedy meant to skewer pretentious show business types and more melodramatic, ostensibly tragic, data involving various characters, but it's such an interesting premise and the cast is so winning that the film's inherent ebullience tends to win out in the long run. The film's kind of prescient if tangential connection to this summer's expected blockbuster from Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk, may also add some extra interest for some film aficionados. Technical merits are strong, and Their Finest comes Recommended.
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