Review: How I Won The War

No dilly dallying on this blog entry. I'll cut straight to the chase with this film review. This movie is a complete trip from start to finish.


How I Won The War (HIWTW) stars Michael Crawford as a bumbling, inept, Commissioned Officer of Britain's military during WW2, and how he recounts the tale of how he was responsible for the Allied victory in Germany.

But the film is far better known for casting John Lennon for the role of one many soldiers conscripted into service.

If you're a person interested in the career of John Lennon, then the film is probably worth checking out. His performance is pretty standard though. He's a pacifist thrust into a war, and is completely unwilling or unable to shoot someone. It's been done before. It was an okay performance though.

However, what must be said about this movie is this:

If you're a fan of historical and accurate war movies, then HIWTW is not for you.

If you like movies with a linear, sensible, easy to follow plot, then HIWTW is not for you.

If gore and people getting shot, stabbed, and dying miserably isn't your thing, then HIWTW is not for you.

If you enjoy a really dark black comedy or absurd British humour, then HIWTW is definitely for you.

I found the film to be completely shocking, hilarious, and amazing all at once. It's a film style completely all its own. Unfortunately I was flipping through channels when I came across it yesterday and missed the first ten minutes of the film, so it took a while to figure out what was happening. Sometimes it's a documentary, sometimes it's a behind the scenes movie, sometimes it's a flashback/flashforward scene, it's just all over the place.

This film swings from being pleasant movie about some wacky in WW2, to a tale of the horrors-of-war and how people deal with it. One moment you'll literally be laughing away and then *pop * someone is getting gutted by a bayonet. Be prepared for major mood swings with this film.

I give HIWTW a final score of

7/10

It gets big points for style of humour, and for breaking the fourth wall perfectly. I can recall four of five times they do it, and each time is done as masterfully as a soliloquy penned by Shakespeare himself (breaking the fourth wall and a soliloquy aren't the same thing though, but I figure it's a close analogy).

It loses points though for leaving some thoughts unfinished. Sometimes a minor tangent or subplot is just abandoned. Or they'll start rolling into a separate plot and you're caught unawares. It's hard to explain without actually seeing it.

Without giving too much away, I'll recommend it to anyone who likes war protest music from the 60s and early 70s. Some of the stuff in the film is completely off tangent comedy, like when a general goes to battle wearing blackface makeup, to some shtick involving land mines.

My HIWTW recommendation comes with fair warning though. When they say this a black comedy, it's pitch black comedy. This isn't a film anyone who can't appreciate a morbid sense of humour can watch.