Pressure
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
Based on a stage play, PRESSURE serves up some decent WW2 action along with a whole lot of talk about the weather, not an easy thing to make suspenseful.
General Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser in FULL bluster mode) is relying on two men to give him the green light for the D-Day invasion on Monday, June 5th.
The first is his trusted advisor for much of the war campaign so far, Irving Krick. Krick (Chris Messina from "Argo" and "Air") is a devil may care, humorous jokester to his fellow officers and has been a reliable weatherman to date.
Winston Churchill tells Ike that there is only one man for the crucial decision around the most important battle of the war, and that's Captain James Stagg (Andrew Scott) the lead British Meteorological Officer who's wound so tight that he squeaks. Scott (Spectre, Blue Moon) is saddled with a character with zero sense of humor and a profound devotion to hesitation. For most of of the film, I just wanted to smack Stagg upside the head and tell him to get on with it. But Scott is a superb actor and when he does finally release all the pressure of the scenario, it's a verbal explosion that works.
Stagg manages to alienate everyone within 50 feet of him, starting with Eisenhower's right hand person, Captain Kay Summersby, perfectly played by Kerry Condon from "The Banshees of Inisherin" and "F1".
For anyone with even a basic knowledge of World War II history and D-Day, there isn't a whole lot of suspense on them trying to make a go of it on June 5th. But the screenplay by Director Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai), based on the play by David Haig, carefully builds plenty of conflict between many factions.
Historical figures abound.
Damian Lewis seems to have wandered in from the set of last year's comedy farce "Fackham Hall" as General "Monty" Montgomery. So laden with testosterone and bravado blended with tightly pursed lips, pinky up tea drinking and "we MUST go on the 5th!" energy that he seemingly has zero regard for his troops, Lewis is way over the top.
Robert Portal (The Iron Lady, My Week with Marilyn) is far better as Admiral Ramsay.
I am a huge fan of Brendan Fraser, but the role seems to only sit comfortably on him in its quieter moments of resolve and introspection. The screenplay requires him to have massive blow up moments, which seem historically out of character for Eisenhower, who was known for his quiet and thoughtful leadership style under enormous pressure. Fraser's Ike seems like he's on a reality show, 'The Real Generals of Normandy", throwing furniture and exploding into tirades. Fraser is such a good actor that he constantly brings you back to center and the interactions between he and Scott in the film's finale are excellent.
Fraser has also said that he read an enormous amount of biographies about Eisenhower in preparing for the role, so I have to give him credit for portraying the man in a style far removed from Ike's historically crafted reputation.
PRESSURE earns a lot of respect by busting out of its stage roots with very well staged battles and troop movements on a large scale. While the D-Day scenes may not be of the same massive, dramatic punch as Spielberg's Normandy invasion in "Saving Private Ryan", the young troops pouring onto those beaches in France still packs an emotional punch, as does their triumph.
Maras knows how to build suspense. His "Hotel Mumbai" is an excellent film and if you haven't seen it, add it to your watch list immediately. He faces a bigger challenge here in building tension about two men staring at weather maps. No easy task, but he navigates it well.
Occasionally, the overbearing music score by Volker Bertelmann quiets down and helps build that tension, but much of the music is SO obtrusive and overbearing that I just wanted it to stop! In the opening scene of Stagg's arrival at HQ, the music grows louder and louder and LOUDER and then an assistant starts banging a hammer at the same time. Stagg screams STOP! I'm pretty sure he was talking about the music score, not the hammer.
PRESSURE is a serviceable, enjoyable WW2 film for aficionados, but it feels like it could have been so much more with some different casting choices.
Maras and his assistant editors combed through over 40 hours of actual WW2 footage from the portrayed events to find footage that was then digitally cleaned up, colorized and added to the film. It adds stunning realism to the film and blends seamlessly into the flow, perhaps the greatest compliment to what Maras has assembled with PRESSURE.
It gets a B-.
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