Six Minutes to Midnight (2021) Review

Sky have been releasing more of these original films and the next one is Six Minutes to Midnight and I watched it today and here is my review for it. The premise of the film sees a British teacher arrive at a school teaching Nazi girls before WW2 to find out exactly what is going on. 

Main Character

Eddie Izzard is a good comic and comedic actor, there is very little doubt about that but they are just horribly miscast in this role. This character is incredibly serious and sombre and Izzard just can't deliver a strong emotional performance to make you care, they were involved in writing the film and producing it so I guess it was decided Izzard could just play the role but it was just not the right role and really hurt the film. 

Supporting Characters

The best two supporting characters are played by James D'arcy and Carla Juni. They are okay in there roles and try their best with what they are given, in most films they would be just average characters but here they are the best parts of the film. Dame Judi Dench has a role here and I just felt like she was phoning it in and offers very little, I think everybody agrees she is a great actress but the last few years the projects she has chosen have been incredibly weak and she needs to do better or maybe just stop. Jim Broadbent has a small role and feels a bit out of place and could have easily been played by anybody. There is a group of girls here and I was puzzled by what the film was trying to do with their characters, I didn't care about any of them and I am not even sure if we were meant to which is a weaker element of the film. 

Story 

The story has some interesting elements to it and it is still amazing that films are telling stories from WW2 that actually happened that we know little about and there is clearly an interesting story here. It is just the film's execution of this story is bad, I didn't care about the characters and the film didn't do a good enough job of understanding the true significance of the plot and how it truly affected things.  

Script

The script is incredibly bland, having Izzard involved you expect something decent but it isn't here at all and the dialogue is so weak. This film is really heavy on drama and none of it is handled well enough to make this a well written film. 

Style 

The film is only 90 minutes long but that doesn't stop it from being incredibly slow and boring. It takes so long for this film and its plot to even get started that the film struggled to keep me interested and thus made me clock out and care less until the showdown at the end of the film which wasn't particularly great. 

Overall

Overall, Six Minutes to Midnight is a really poor film. I think in the hands of a better director and with actors more suited to the roles this could have been an interesting film but in its state this is one to miss. 

Rating - 2/10