El arma del engaño

I was really looking forward to this film because it's based on the book of the same name by Ben Macintyre, which was brilliant.

It starts off very strong, setting the scene, as in wartime Britain and at what point of the war it is, and highlighting the importance of the mission that the main characters will do.

Unfortunately as other reviewers have said the main plot of the movie is not the focus at times and instead it focuses on, frankly, irritating sub-plots. The strength of the film is the intelligence work that the characters do and that should have been the focus.

The acting was great. I particularly liked, Jason Isaacs as John Godfrey a naval commander and Simon Russel Beale as Winston Churchill.

Overall, worth watching, especially if you normally like World War Two dramas or spy stories, but potentially could have been better I think.

The idea for the film is good and solid. However, it is diluted to the absurd with some weird menage a trois love plat that, if removed, would shorten the movie with a much needed half an hour.

The production team clearly had one too many during the making of this. Why anyone would add fiction to spoil a fascinating historical tale is beyond me.

Lets recap -- the Brits decieved Hitler through brilliant trickery into diverting his troops, thereby losing ground to the allies, and ultimately losing the war. If this was pure fiction it would be unbelievable or better told with Marvel characters or Tarantino. However, it wasnt fiction!! So why litter the core story with contrived subplots? The relationship between Montague and Jean was nonsense. Unrealistic. Irrelevant. Was it perhaps because someone promised Colin it was a love story to get him involved? Add to this, whilst the script and dialogue was largely good, at times it was awful. These were brainfreeze moments. Casting and performances were generally good, especially Matthew M and Penelope Wilton.

I did enjoy the movie but mainly because of the sheer fascination with the story, rather than the execution of this version of the story.

It was enjoyable enough but I really wanted to enjoy this more than I did.

It seemed to unnecessarily labour several male characters fancying Kelly Macdonald's character. All the time taken up on this tiresome sub-plot would have been better spent on some of the main story. Also, a triple-agent character giving a hand job to someone just seemed unlikely and out of place.

One of several nods to James Bond was an unfeasibly high-powered buzzsaw watch as a throwaway gag (because of Ian Fleming being a character) was corny and distracting.

I somehow expected it would be more engaging, gritty and revealing than the 1956 film, but it seemed pretty typical and formulaic like many modern British WWII themed films with foiled wartime romances crow-barred in.

There are some great actors in the film but some of them seem to be overused in other similar roles the same era. It even seemed a little like a mini "Death of Stalin" reunion for Jason Isaacs and Simon Russell Beale.

Perhaps I'm being too unkind to the film, but I was looking forward to it and fell a little short of expectations.

Nothing like the earlier version, The Man Who Never Was, this version has too much fluff The first version was fast moving and much more entertaining with less characters, this had extraneous side stories, the operation is the main story, this was a Masterpiece Theater type production and a bit of a bore.