NOT EVEN JUDI CAN ESCAPE FROM THIS ONE . . .
SIX MINUTES To Midnight ( ★★III, 12A) has a great title (it refers to the code for a secret phone number, Whitehall 1154), a great cast (including Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent) and a great premise, weaving a spy thriller out of the extraordinary true story of an Anglo-German finishing school in Bexhill-on-Sea in East Sussex attended by the daughters of senior Nazis, which stayed open until the very eve of World War II.
Unfortunately, it’s a desperately clunky affair in which co-writer Eddie Izzard is miscast as an English teacher planted in the school by military intelligence.
Dame Judi, who plays the school’s guileless headmistress, has teamed up before to great effect with a stand-up comedian, namely Billy Connolly in the charming 1997 drama Mrs Brown. But Izzard never looks comfortable, while benefiting in a way from a screenplay so ropey in parts that you wonder whether maybe we’re meant to laugh, as when the girls line a staircase and sing in an unwitting pastiche of the ‘So Long, Farewell’ scene in The Sound Of Music.
James D’Arcy, who has an acting role in Six Minutes To Midnight, is also the writer-director behind Made In Italy ( ★★III, 15), a ‘bittersweet comedy’ pairing Liam Neeson with his son Micheal Richardson.
Unfortunately, this too is a crashing disappointment, blighted by lumpen acting, unconvincing dialogue and forced slapstick. What it does have, however, is plenty of gorgeous Tuscan scenery as widowed painter Robert Foster (Neeson) and his semi-estranged son Jack (Richardson) restore an old family house there, prior to selling it so that Jack can buy his ex-wife out of her London art gallery.
The idea is that the adventure heals their relationship. But it’s so inexpertly done, so stuffed with caricatures, that I found myself wishing on the unlikeable Jack the usual fate of Neeson’s on-screen offspring. Where’s Taken 4 when you need it?
Finally, do we need Tom & Jerry The Movie ( ★★★II, PG), which I reviewed in detail in Wednesday’s paper? I think we could use some collective family fun right now, and this mash-up, plonking the venerable cartoon characters into real-life Manhattan, ticks at least some of the right boxes. n All available on digital platforms now.