Directed by Morten Tyldum

Another film that bites off more than it can chew. Tyldum, who made his name with the brilliant “Headhunters” a few years back, can’t decide between a WWII thriller or a look back on the heinous way in which institutionalized homophobia reared it’s very ugly head in the UK during the last century. Personally, as an amateur WWII historian, I would’ve preferred the former. It’s one of the greatest stories of the war and has directly led to our computer-world…and the movie works well when it sticks to that goal.

The other side of the film, however, feels incredibly slapdash…as if it exists only as bookends to show us the beginning and the end of our hero’s life story, which would’ve been fine if that’s all it was. But, alas, the director (or the studio) forces us to read about thirty paragraphs at the end of the film about the treatment of homosexuals…just in case we didn’t get it during the movie. Oy. We did. We do.

The acting is exceptional…but because so much of the film is taken up with the secondary story (flashbacks and flash-forwards), I feel like some of the juicier stuff ended up on the floor of the edit bay. It’s a shame.

Originally reviewed on 12/24/2014