MUNICH: THE EDGE OF WAR
Cert 12A ★★★★
In cinemas now, on Netflix from January 21
This tense, clever and thoroughly gripping adaptation of Robert
Harris’s historical thriller gives a much-maligned appeaser an intriguing makeover.
Jeremy Irons’ Neville Chamberlain is nobody’s fool. He’s a wily schemer prepared to tarnish his own reputation to buy time to re-arm and prepare his people for an inevitable war.
Here, Chamberlain’s machinations at the infamous Munich Conference of 1938 are seen through the bewildered eyes of Hugh Legat, one of the PM’S aides, played by George Mckay.
A 1932 prologue sees stiff-upper-lipped
Legat discussing politics with his German best friend, the passionate Paul von Hartman (an excellent Jannis Niewöhner), as they graduate from Oxford University.
That strained friendship is put to the test six years later when Western leaders are
summoned to Munich for negotiations with Adolf Hitler (Ulrich Matthes) over a potential invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Unbeknown to Chamberlain, the secret service have tasked Legat with collecting stolen Nazi documents from von Hartman, now a disillusioned translator working for Hitler.
We know how the main story will end. But director Christian Schwochow crafts wonderfully tense moments as Legat dodges Nazi goons and von Hartman endures chilling close encounters with the Fuhrer.
Irons balances these slightly outlandish genre elements with a convincing, touching and strangely timely performance as the selfless old strategist.
Does Britain need another Churchill? Or is it time for a new Chamberlain?