Saved by a plot of gold
A $100m gold-leafed masterpiece, thieving Nazis and and Helen Mirren... even after a leaden start, it can’t fail
film. But, like Mirren, he gets there eventually, helped by the power of the underlying story, particularly in the flashbacks to Vienna. In these increasingly emotional sections, Curtis gets almost everything right, having his cast speak in German and drawing touching and convincing performances from his actors.
Given the awful historical context, it’s perhaps small wonder that their counterparts in the modern-day strand seem to struggle to match them. Mind you, dialogue that takes in everything from James Bond films to melting doughnuts doesn’t always help.
Here again, however, the story comes to Curtis’s aid, with the obstructive bureaucracy and legal scheming of the Austrian government finally giving the modern part of the story the heft it’s been lacking. Now we’ve got an underdog to cheer for; now Mirren can come into her own.
That said, this isn’t one of her top-drawer performances, more one that becomes simply pretty good. As a result, there are times in this story when you wonder whether writer Alexi Kaye Campbell could have sacrificed a little veracity for a moment or two of star-flattering, crowdpleasing drama. Mirren needs a big scene and, barring one splendid late entrance and a furious tirade hurled at an unfortunate Austrian museum official, it never quite comes.
Nevertheless, the film itself builds to a splendid conclusion, with the story coming satisfyingly together, albeit in a way more likely to win commercial audiences than awards, but sending us out onto the street with that nice feeling of having seen a great wrong finally put right.