BLITZ
(director/writer: Steve McQueen; cinematographer: Yorick Le Saux; editor: Peter Sciberras; music: Hans Zimmer; cast: Elliott Heffernan (George), Saoirse Ronan (Rita), Paul Weller (Gerald), Harris Dickinson (Jack), Benjamin Clementine (Air Warden), Stephen Graham (Albert), Kathy Burke (Beryl), Mica Ricketts (Jess), Leigh Gill (Mickey Davies), CJ Beckford (Marcus), Alex Jennings (Victor Smyte), Joshua McGuire (Clive), Hayley Squires (Tilda), Erin Kellyman (Doris), Sally Messham (Agnes); Runtime: 120; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Steve McQueen, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Arnon Milchan, Yariv Milchan, Anita Overland; Apple TV +; 2024-UK/USA)
“Though not an easy watch, it works as a fine McQueen war drama that shows how the racially diverse Londoners endured the 1940 Nazi Blitz. ”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The Brit filmmaker Steve McQueen (“Widows”/”Occupied Cities”) presents a gritty episodic war drama. It captures the perils faced by the Brits from the Nazi air Blitz on London in 1940, and how there was racial and social unrest sliding under the radar that had to be dealt with. McQueen’s aim is to take away the unfiltered romanticizing of that period by Brit right-wingers as a time when only whites fought to save England.
George (Elliott Heffernan-age eleven, in a masterful acting debut) is the nine-year-old son of a white British mother, Rita (Saoirse Ronan), and a Grenadian father. The film is set during the Blitz-ravaged London of 1940. Mother and son live with their grandfather Gerald (Peter Weller), ever since George’s father was deported to the Caribbean after a confrontation with white racists before he was born.
The family has left London to live in the country, in Stepney, where George hangs around with white kids. One day he angrily hops on a train and returns to his melting pot old East End section in London.
He’s looked after in a shelter by the kindly air warden (Benjamin Clementine).
As time goes by, George is recruited into a criminal gang of scavengers run by Albert (Stephen Graham) and Beryl (Kathy Burke). In a highlight scene, a crowd of rich whites are partying at a West End club when a bomb kills them and George’s gang comes by to rob their corpses of money and jewelry.
Later, at the London Bridge, 66 sheltering people are drowned when a direct hit bursts a water main. George acts heroically trying to save lives.
Though not an easy watch, It works as a fine McQueen war drama that shows how the racially diverse London population endured the 1940 Nazi Blitz.
It played at the London Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 10/15/2024 GRADE: B
dennisschwartzreviews.com