Dad’s Army – Film Review by Pat V.

Director: Oliver Parker
Writers: David Croft (original series), Hamish McColl (screenplay)
Stars: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bill Nighy, Toby Jones

If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery then the writers of the original TV series of Dad’s Army, Jimmy Perry and David Croft, must feel immensely flattered these days. Flattered, maybe, but also bemused why their hugely popular, nine-season television series has been rehashed into a film that seems to have no point, lacking the originality and well-delineated characterisation of the original while adding nothing new. It is hard to know at whom this film is directed. For lovers of the television series it is embarrassing to see the excellent cast of the movie mimicking the characters they are so familiar with and delivering the catch phrases from the series without the original flair, like watching second-rate Elvis impersonators, all glitter but no magic. A younger generation, not familiar with the series, would find the film confusing and just plain silly.

The major failing of this film is that it tries to stick too closely to the original series and captures everything but the essentials. The actors here are made up to look almost exactly like the original cast, copying their movements, accents and entire sequences from the series. Regrettably the result is like watching a parody or a Dad’s Army theme party.

For those not familiar with the television series, Dad’s Army is set during WW2 in Walmington-on-Sea, a fictional town on the south coast of England. The characters are members of the Home Guard, a defence force of local volunteers ineligible for military service, such as those too young or too old to join the services, whose role is to protect against an expected German invasion. The film is set in 1944, shortly before the Normandy landings. The stellar cast (a who’s who of older British actors) do their best to breath life into a poor script and a very obvious storyline. Toby Stevens, as Captain Mainwaring, copies Arthur Lowe to a tee but instead of capturing his lovable pomposity here he comes across as a pathetic bully and the sequence where he takes off his glasses to impress a young woman (taken directly from the TV episode called Mum’s Army) is clumsy and awkward and totally lacks the charm of the original. Bill Nighy has none of John Le Mesurier’s wit and dreamy vagueness as Sergeant Wilson. Here he comes across simply as a bumbling lecher.

Some performances, however, do impress. Michael Gambon captures Private Godfrey’s otherworldliness perfectly though the director’s decision to have him urinate on screen, unlike TV’s Arnold Ridley who constantly asks to be “excused”, shows a lack of subtlety that is obvious throughout the film. Daniel Mays’ Private Walker is also first class. He captures the brashness of the character without slavishly imitating the original. It is a pleasure to see Frank Williams playing the vicar as he did in the original series though it is a pity he is given such a minor role. The only other actor from the television series, Ian Lavender, the original Private Pike, here has been promoted to the role of Brigadier Pritchard. He must have cringed at the portrayal of Pike by Blake Harrison, the weakest performance in the film.

Just as the women of Walmington-on-Sea save the day against the Germans, the female actors save the film from total tedium. Catherine Zeta-Jones as the vampish German spy is not given much scope for subtlety but she plays her part well and with a lot of humour.

The other women, Sarah Lancashire, Alison Steadmond and Annette Crosbie especially, are excellent and add some much needed humour. Felicity Montagu who plays Captain Mainwaring’s wife, Elizabeth, a character often mentioned but never seen in the TV series, lives up to the formidable image the writers had created of her.

Dad’s Army is not the worst film you will see this year but with such a talented cast you should reasonable expect it to be one of the best. Sadly it is not.